Hermit Thrush, Catharus guttatus


Hermit Thrush
The Hermit Thrush is the only one of the four similar Catharus thrushes that winters in North America; these shy birds regularly visit our backyard fountain during that season, see below. I also see (and more often hear) them when they are nesting high in the Sierras in summer. They have heavy chest spotting, a distinct and complete though narrow eye-ring, and a plain gray-brown head and back contrasting with a reddish tail; the color contrast between back and tail distinguishes Hermit Thrush from the other three Catharus thrush species (compare Swainson's Thrush, Gray-cheeked Thrush, and Veery.)

Walt Whitman chose the Hermit Thrush and its haunting ethereal song as a symbol for a poet addressing death in his celebrated elegy for Lincoln, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ("Solitary the thrush,/ The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,/ Sings by himself a song... Sing on, sing you gray-brown bird... Come lovely and soothing death... I float this carol with joy to thee, to thee O Death.") Thus the shy little gray-brown songster was joined with Keats's nightingale and Shelley's skylark, an American representative in the pantheon of supreme poetic birds.


Hermit Thrush


Hermit Thrush
Above and the two below: Hermit Thrush at our backyard fountain.


Hermit Thrush


Hermit Thrush


Hermit Thrush