Each winter the cold weather and snow drives the beautiful Varied thrushes down from the mountains.  They begin appearing at our house in the fall but return to their higher elevation breeding grounds in the spring.  As far as photography is concerned, each year the Varied thrush is a target bird for me.  We almost always have at least a few visit our yard but this year the visits have been somewhat scarcer than in prior years and the birds have been much shyer.

I’ve had some luck with finding one or two in the area of the Cap Sante wetland on occasion but on Saturday, January 6, 2018 I found the situation for which I had been hoping.  There were several thrushes around the wetland.  Most were sorting through the leaf litter but I think some may have been visiting holly trees in the area.  I found an accommodating male that allowed me to creep to within about eight feet of him and I took almost 100 photos, most of which had to be discarded due to his almost constant motion of turning over the leaf litter looking for bugs and worms.  (He appeared to be VERY successful!)

Both the Varied thrush and the American robin are members of the thrush family (“cousins”, so to speak).  For contrast, here is a robin that was in the same area…

Strangely enough, during episodes of heavy snowfall I have seen the thrushes eat seed off the ground whereas robins won’t touch it.

After I had almost exhausted my film supply  🙂  I drove down to the northwest corner of the Cap Sante marina where earlier in the morning I had seen three Pied-billed grebes, one more than I had ever seen there previously.  I took few photos of them before calling it a day for my photography.

And a little hint for my loyal readers…  this May (5, 10 &17) I will emerge from retirement and again teach a beginning birding course for the Anacortes Senior College.  Interested parties can begin signing up for the three-week course in February.  I’ll post additional details on this blog before the end of January.