Thrushes in winter?!

[Space Toker]

The weather here has been highly variable, very cold and very warm periods, with more cold spells than warm spells. For the last few (2-3 maybe) years, I have been seeing normally summer only thrushes well into the fall, and this winter there was one here in the winter. It died in the birdbath as I discussed in another thread, but I went for a walk a couple days ago and there was another in the woods.

Robins are thrushes and they are around in vast numbers eating berries. That is nothing new. I have seen bluebirds on rare occasions from February onward or in October. But never a brown thrush like this (wood or swainson's or grey cheeked). They normally winter Central America southward. I hope there are other bird lovers here and they can explain this to me or confirm that they have seen the same! Wild!

 

[supermanlives]

birds are edible

 

[Stoner4Life]

birds are edible

I used to go out & bring home plenty of ruffed grouse, it's why I've owned springer spaniels, grouse are our common upland game bird up here, but sometimes the woods would be filled with woodcock; nervous flitting birds, good eating but the breast meat was as big as one half of a marshmallow, you hadda bag a bunch of them to make a meal, woodcock flew & gathered in flocks by the dozens. With grouse mostly you'd find one bird or two together, sometimes but certainly not often a guy could come across 5 or 6 of them gathered.

I can't imagine eating non-game birds, they live mostly on insects, worms & seed.

Game birds crops (I get to see what my prey's been eating) are full of rose hips, blueberries, blackberries, russian olives, clover & sometimes buds from immature tree branches; that's the Waldorf diet my future food eats.

I got grouse in the freezer right now, by way of barter

 

[supermanlives]

I got quail... they are everywhere here lol .. I have bagged grouse in the past but not here in cali....

 

[Space Toker]

This wasn't supposed to be a thread on eating birds! But while we are on the subject, woodcocks are seldom seen here, pheasants and grouse have been more common when they were around but haven't seen much of them the last few years either, nor the pair of mallards that came to eat birdseed under the feeders. we have these giant groups of "wild" (released from the sportsmen club a mile or so away?) turkeys that come sometimes a couple dozen or more strong and leave rusty color torpedo droppings everywhere, don't know what the proper season is for that but would like to eat one or more of those! Problem is, I can't imagine how I would process them as I have no experience with this, have no 50 gallon witch's cauldron or something to dunk a bird of that size into hot water to defeather it, and wonder if all the time and effort is worth it in the end.

But these types of thrushes are supposed to winter in central america not new england!
anyone else seen any?

 

[supermanlives]

theres more than one way to process a turkey.... youtube prob even has videos... go knock off one of them birds... lol.. back east in mass I had huge groups of turkeys on property and I would feed em in winter to keep em healthy an fat...

 

[aridbud]

Birds and insects show the changes in climate.

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

Quail are very tasty with a bacon wrap.

As a kid camping we would flush them up the side of a hill and blast away with our 410's. Yummy.

minds_I

 

[Space Toker]

I can't be sure but it looks like a thrush I have not seen, which means Swainson's/Bicknell's/grey cheeked ( I saw one of these in the fall I mentioned, but not sure which, my thrush id skills not the greatest I am afraid). Come to find out, hermit makes the most sense as they winter outside of c/s America and all the way north to Virginia, but did not notice the pronounced vivid reddish brown tail as they have, looks like a more drab and lightly spotted thrush to me, hope I see it again to gain more insight! Needless to say, I was shocked and glad it seemed to be enjoying thoroughly its visit to our birdbath, preened and bathing repeatedly like it was 74F instead of 24!

 

[armedoldhippy]

haven't seen any brown thrushes since October, but the yards around here are full of robins lately. we got lots of grouse/turkeys, but bobwhite quail are nothing but a pleasant memory here since farmers started mowing/planting every single square inch of their land.