A Lonely Hermit Thrush (Blog 178)

After some 20 inches of snow, terribly cold weather, and a lack of food in the surrounding forest on our Botetourt County, Virginia land, one would think that our wintering hermit thrush would have enough challenges in his quest to survive the winter.  Elaine and I have watched the hermit thrush flitting about our backyard for much of the winter - seemingly doing as well as could be expected.

But this avian's existence took a nasty turn on Wednesday just as the snow was beginning to melt.  The thrush, inexplicably, became caught in the chicken wire surrounding our coop, and I came across him when I was preparing to let the chickens forage in the backyard after I came home from school.

Not wanting to hurt our yard bird in any way, I gently extricated him from the chicken wire, took a few pictures of him, and then loosened my grip.  The thrush immediately and heartily flew away, seemingly none the worse for the experience.

Our (if I can be so bold to claim him) hermit thrush still has several months left of his sojourn before he heads north to breed.  I hope this was the last of his misadventures.