WOOD THRUSH 101 



HYLOCICHLA MUSTELINA (Gmelin) 



WOOD THRUSH 



Contributed by Florence Grow Weaver 



HABITS 



The nature lover who has missed hearing the musical bell-like notes 

 of the wood thrush, in the quiet woods of early morning or in the 

 twilight, has missed a rare treat. The woods seems to have been 

 transformed into a cathedral where peace and serenity abide. One's 

 spirit seems truly to have been lifted by this experience. 



These birds are found in low, cool, damp forests, often near streams. 

 This probably follows because of the need of mud and damp plant 

 material, whichare used in the construction of the nest. Undergrowth 

 and the presence of saplings seem to help determine the suitability of 

 an area during the breeding season. I found no nests in conifers, 

 which were numerous in the mixed coniferous and deciduous forests in 

 which my studies of this species were carried on, but short dead 

 branches of these trees were often used as song perches. There are 

 citations in the literature, however, that record nests in conifers. A 

 hemlock was used in New York, cedars in Florida, and recently many 

 nests have been found in coniferous bogs in northern Michigan; two 

 nests were found in balsam firs. Thickets were usually not chosen 

 by the wood thrush, although one pair built in a sapling ash-leaved 

 maple in a dense growth of such saplings. 



Dr. A. A. Allen (1934) believes that this bird dislikes bright sun- 

 light, probably because its eyes are so large that too much sunlight 

 makes the bird uncomfortable, so that it keeps to thick woods or 

 ravines where there is plenty of vegetation and resulting shade. 



Besides the locations already mentioned, a number of birds choose 

 places near human habitations, or in parks or gardens. Tracing this 

 adaptation of habitat back through the literature, it seems that this 

 change took place during a 20-year period, from 1890 to 1910. Wid- 

 mann (1922) reports a nest inside the conservatory in Shaw's Garden, 

 St. Louis, Mo. Orchards are seldom chosen as locations for nests. 



There is considerable evidence of the gradual northward extension 

 of the breeding range of the wood thrush. In reviewing the literature 

 for this paper, I find a recent breeding record for Montreal, Quebec, 

 Canada, which is a little north of previous records for the vicinity 

 (Cleghorn, 1940). 



Root (1942) reports records for Cheboygan County in northern 

 Michigan in Canadian Zone coniferous bogs. Roberts (1932) has 



