This Thrush is one of the rarest in southern New Eng-land. It is a near relative of the Olive-backed Thrush, from which it differs in having gray sides to the head and in being somewhat larger. A few of the Gray-cheeked Thrushes come to the garden and lane every spring and fall; but even these migratory visits are very irregular. Bradford Torrey, whose White Mountain experience has brought him into intimate contact with Bicknell's Thrush (as those individuals which breed in the mountains of New York and New England are called) during its season of song, says that "... while the Gray-cheek's song bears an evident resemblance to the Veery's, ... the two are so unlike in pitch and rhythm that no reasonably nice ear ought ever to confound them."
The song is one of the most infrequent sounds in this locality; but I have heard it three times in the lane, and have come within identifying range of the singer, attracted and aided by Mr. Torrey's description and syllabication.[1]
Olive-backed Thrush: Turdus ustulatus swainsoni.
Plate 7.
61
- ↑ "The Foot-Path Way," Houghton, Mifflin & Co.