Varied thrush

Birds and windows do not go together. We decided to head out on a paddle in some protected waters because of the gale warning for more open waters. But first we had to stop by Jay's lab to get his boots. We discovered a stunned varied thrush sitting by a huge window at the lab. I was out of the car instantly to see if it was O.K. The spot on the window where it had hit was obvious - feathers and some smeared blood? Why is it that introduced nasty species like starlings never hit windows? Instead, it seems to be the native, lovely songbirds - like this varied thrush - that have to hit windows. A fox sparrow (another gorgeous native songbird) flew into our home window and was killed instantly the other week. This resulted in me printing out a million hawk silhouettes and taping them to our windows. But I'm not sure a big marine lab will do this to their windows or not. In either case, we put some grass into a traffic cone that was around the lab parking lot and placed the thrush into the cone. It was freezing and we were worried that without this little fluff moving, it would get too cold. Then we went for a paddle. When we came back hours later, the bird was still there. But active! When I reached in to try and get it out - it flew away! We are not naive, and we realize it may still die. But at least it flew away to a tree and off the ground so it will not be exposed to ground predators.

Here is the beautiful varied thrush - you can see the spot on its head where it hit the window

Our freezing paddle

Lester gets comfy

Darwin dreams of life without the annoying collar