Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-14
BROWN rHRAsHER FAMILIES.
The Anxious Bird Parents-GSod LOOKS
of the Young FIedselinss.

These are busy days for the broWE
thrasher and filled with family cares.
The robin disports himself as II ne hao
no responsibilities, eating VoraclousiE
and gathering with his fellows IN HOOKS
along the watercourseS, or huhtlls VII
lawns and meadows for worms 10 pe
devoureu on the spot. The Wood thrush
sings at morning and at evening ana
even at high and hot noon. But the
brown thrasher does none OF THESE
things, or if he does any of them, II Is
rarely and not with careless joy, as ne
did all things six weeks ago. For 10
bring a brown thrasher into the Worio
where worms are few and cats are leg
ion is a solemn thing.
The books on birds say that the
brown thrasher shuns man in the nest
ling season, and never sings near tie
nest The first of these assertions IS
hardly tru except in the sentse tnal
these birds are unlikely to build very
near the habitations Of men, and so rs
to the second, the brown thfasher
seems to do little or no singing once
he has young to guard. He does hot
hesitate, however, to build inthe shfup-
berry of suburban homes, and he GER
tainly sings not very far from his nest
when his paternal duties do not occu-
py all his time. Dangers of one kind or
another have cured the brown thraSher
Of the t-building habit that earned
him one of his half dozen aliases-the
ground thrush. He is now one OF the
most cautious of builders, selecting the
depths of a shrubbery thicket, or the
inner side of a dense thorn hedge. only
a keen and practised eye is. likely to de-
tect his house of woven tWigs, ana
when once the searcher has found 1t
he is likely to repent his own enter
prise, so keen is the birds concern.
All of this goes to show the import
ance of the little brown lhraShers, at
least in the eyes of their parents. ANA
once you have made acquaintance with
the young thrasher you are Likely TO
understand if you do not fully share
the opinion of the parents, for hardy
a handsomer youngster wears feathers
The young are amazingly like their
parents, the speckled breast a bit paler,
the warm sandy red back thought
cruder in color. and the fine long tail,
iiSitoiS stump, tiiouSH luis Vilousoii ~
which is the special distinction of the
full-grown bird, as yet a mere rudi~
of most birds. The tail of the brown
thrasher, however, is vastly more tina n
mere steering gear: it is the medium
of expression for half his emotions, and
the brown thrasher is a bird of man
fold emotions, conveyed by means of
many cries, calls and gestures to say
nothing of his wonderful song, which
expresses all that can be said by most
speech and much the only lyric forms
of expression can convey.
Ii you would learn how great a vari-
ETY. of tones the brown thrasher has you
should intrude upon him in the midst
of his family cares. He receives such
visits with the utmost distress, now
warning his young with sharp calls
to keep out of harms way, now giving
forth a something infinitely sweet be-
tween a Groom and a coo, that may be
a cry of affection and encouragement
to the young or prayer for mercy adj
dressed to tn intruder. Taken as the
latter, it is likely to be effective with
even the most hardened sinner, for it is
the sOftest, sweetest, most imploring,
low WiStful flute note that throat or
bird can utter.
Long after the ambitious young wood
thrushes are essaying in shrill falsetto
to initiate the warbled saprano of their
elders, the young brown thrasher are
discreetly silent. How could six
weeks iledgeling be expected to initiate
the long dramatic lyrics of the parent
bird. especially since the young so sell
dom hear them? Mere instinct can
hardly go so far. SO the brown thrash
er family gives its whole energies to
making ready for the fall migration,
and October finds old and young pre-
pared for the long flight that is to end
in the Cerolinas or southern Alabama.