hermit thrush north carolina | Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours

By Sally siko

Pleased to spend time with a Hermit Thrush this morning while birding at Cape Fear Shiners Park in Lillington, North Carolina.
I hadn’t spotted one since last year so it was nice to catch up with this beautiful bird again.

In my opinion the Hermit Thrush has one of the most beautiful songs in the entire United States.
There is a distinct melody, delicate thread of song rising and falling between the birds notes.
Sometimes they sing quite loudly, others at a near whisper.
Often they may be the only bird singing in the entire woods, as was the case this day. Truly, this is a bird that beckons you to linger just a few minutes longer to enjoy your time outdoors.

Although they do breed in the higher elevations in the Appalachian mountains in western North Carolina, Hermit Thrushes are generally a winter time visitor to the rest of the state from late September through mid March.
Once you’ve located a Hermit Thrush by its song, it’s pretty easy to ID them.
As you can see by the photos, they are nice, warm copper, reddish, brown color, which stands out among the gray trees. They’ve also got bright white breast plumage with a pleasant spotting all over.

My advice is to find someplace comfortable to sit and wait for the bird to start singing again. I’ll warn you, though, these enchanting little performers will pull you in so you might not leave the forest again until dusk lol!
They’ll only stick around central NC for another week or two so get out there while you can to see this bird before they head north and west to their breeding grounds this spring.

By the way, I’ve added 80+ new birding tour dates to my 2024 calendar for destinations in North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Maine.
Check the link in my bio for booking availability 🙂

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5

By the way, I’ve added more than 80 new birding tour dates to my Best Life Birding trip schedule including trips to Shiners Park in Lillington.
Check out the calendar below and book your next birding adventure with me today!

By: Sally Siko- Admin BWNC

A couple days ago, I went out into the rain to go birding at the Cape Fear Shiners park in Lillington, NC.
This is a relatively new birding hot spot designated by eBird and I was eager to explore the woods, fields and marsh to see what I could find.
One of the first birds spotted was this Hermit Thrush perched on a branch just off the trail.

I was thrilled to be able to snap off a few photos of this feathered gem from a relatively close vantage point.
The cloudy diffused lighting, misting rain and those lovely golden leaves provided (IMO) a superb backdrop for these portraits.
Just gorgeous!

As a few of you know, winter is my favorite season to go birding in NC and species like the Hermit Thrush are the reason why.
These pretty thrushes breed in the conifer forests in the mountains of the western part of the state but only show up in central & eastern North Carolina in October-early April.

They are best found in open coniferous and mixed deciduous forests, near berry and fern thickets and along pasture edges. Their habitats preferences are led by their diet which includes insects, spiders, snails, and earthworms, plus considerable amounts of berries during the fall and winter.
Look for Hermit Thrushes foraging for insects on the ground and munching on berries in the shrubs and low canopies of trees in central NC from now until early April.

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on my beloved beast of a DSLR the @canonusa #5Ds