Common name: Varied Thrush
Scientific name: Ixoreus naevius
Order: Passeriformes Family: Turdidae
-The Varied Thrush’s simple, ringing song gives a voice to the quiet forests of the Pacific Northwest, with their towering conifers and wet understories of ferns, shrubs, and mosses.
- Catch a glimpse of this shy bird and you’ll see a handsome thrush with a slaty gray back and breast band set against burnt-orange breast and belly.
-This lovely shy bird is mostly common in locations such as the pacific coasts, cascade, and the lush forests of the rocky mountain areas.
-Varied Thrush has a diet consisting of insects during the warmer summer months and will switch to berries when the cold winter weather comes through the region. They will also eat seeds from ground feeder during winter as well but it is not its primary choice of food resources. Planting native berry shrubs and trees is also highly encouraged to attract them to your backyard when warmer months come along.
-A twentieth-century bird artist, and long time friend of the Cornell Labs founder Arthur Allen, had described the Varied Thrush's simple, contemplative song "as perfectly the voice of the cool, dark, peaceful solitude which the bird chooses for its home as could be imagined".
-Similar to hummingbirds, the Varied Thrush is quite defensive over small feeding territories. Mainly the males, they will dominate Sparrows, Blackbirds, Cowbirds, Towhees, and Juncos. The only time in which they will feed in flocks of different species is when they occasionally forage for berries or earthworms on lawns with American Robins.
-Data from the Project FeederWatch have shown that Varied Thrush populations will follow a boom bust pattern on a 2 year cycle.
-The oldest Varied Thrush on record was a male, and at least 4 years and 9 months old when he was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in California in 1982. He had been originally banded in the same state in 1978.
On the Migratory Bird Act?: Yes (protected species)
Conservation Status: Steep Decline