Four Fun Facts about the Wood Thrush
Every state has its own state bird: Maryland’s got the Baltimore oriole, Virginia has the cardinal, and so on. And even though Washington, D.C., isn’t a state, the District has its own bird, too. The wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) is native to the area and breeds throughout the entire Eastern half of the United States. While their reddish-brown feathers and speckled breast make these birds hard to see in their native forests, you probably hear them pretty often in the summertime with their flute-like songs (more on that later).
Below are some interesting facts about the wood thrush that you probably didn’t know:
1) Divide and Conquer!
You would think that once the chicks hatch, the parents would be focused on raising those hatchlings to adulthood. But the success of the species depends on more bird babies. So the male wood thrush will take over most of the feeding response of the chicks so that the female can lay more eggs and incubate the next group of young. Once all of the chicks have hatched, the parents will divide the groups up and care for them separately within the same territory. That’s a lot of balls (er, eggs) to juggle!
2) Got Milk?
Eggshells are made mostly of calcium carbonate, and just like bones or teeth, eggshells need calcium to be strong. But birds don’t drink milk. Instead, the wood thrush will eat things like snail shells that have calcium carbonate in them. And they have to eat A LOT: a wood thrush needs 10 to 15 times the amount of calcium that a small mammal would need to nurture its young.
3) Fool me once, shame on you.
Wood thrush numbers are declining, but the main reason may surprise you. Remember all those babies the wood thrushes are caring for? Well, they may not be wood thrush chicks after all. A different species, the brown-headed cowbird, takes advantage of other birds and lays eggs in the strangers’ nests, letting the adopted parents do all the hard work. The cowbird chicks are bigger and stronger than the young wood thrushes, so they are the ones that end up surviving instead of the original nestlings.
4) Sing me a song.
Both male and female wood thrush can sing, but most likely if you hear one, it’s a male bird. Their songs are very complex, with the males putting different variants together to create a three-part song; with all the different variants, a wood thrush can sing more than 50 songs! And not only that, but the birds can also make more than one sound at one time, creating an internal harmony. Males use their skills to try to out-sing each other, copying each other’s tunes to see (hear) who can sing it best. Bring on the serenade duel!
Click below to help us protect the wood thrush’s habitat.
