Brown Thrasher News

So far, the dogs don't seem to have noticed that the thrashers are nesting in the rose bush!

Yesterday my husband gave me a scare: he came to me with a little blue bird egg in his hand and said, "I think they've abandoned that nest. It's hanging sideways in the bush, and I found this on the ground." My heart sank, and I went out to see for myself. I looked into the rose bush, and the thrasher looked back from her nice level nest. Huh, I said to myself.

I went and found Mr. Husband and asked, "What nest are you talking about?"

"The robin's nest in the yew bush," he said. Oh. Well, yes, that nest was hanging sideways, and the robins have abandoned it. They made it at the junction of two branches, and the wind seems to have pulled one branch loose from the underside of the nest. But knowing robins, they'll probably nest again this season.

Speaking of wild bird eggs reminded me of The Provincial Museum of Alberta's "Eggs - A Virtual Exhibition". This is an online collection of pictures of wild bird eggs. I went clicking through, looking for the thrasher's egg, and found they also have a good picture of the bird itself, yellow eye and all.

Yesterday I saw a thrasher doing something I've never seen before. It was foraging under the bird feeder that I fill with black oil sunflower seed, then carrying something over to a sandy spot, and whacking the "something" energetically with its bill. It looked like a roadrunner killing a snake. I got the binoculars to try and see what the "something" was that needed all this energy, and was lucky enough to watch the procedure twice.

The "something" was a sunflower seed!

I have seen blue jays wallop open a sunflower seed, holding it with their feet and whacking it with their bills. My toes always cringe at this. I don't think these big birds get half the energy from eating the seed that they use breaking it open!