I was expecting to hear Hermit Thrush as well. I have heard
Hermit Thrushes on Christmas counts if the sun is out and
its warm and I suspect that many of the Swainson's Thrushes
reported early in the season are Hermits instead.

However (and no one will be surprised by this), I compared
Martyn's recording to both Hermit and Swainson's sonograms
and it looks very different from a typical Hermit song and
right on Swainson's. I think the recording represents a
singing Swainson's Thrush.

---- original message ----
Subject: thrush song
From: "Charles Swift" <charless AT moscow.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:28:26 -0800

Hi All -

I listened to the thrush song posted on naturesounds.org and am not
convinced it is a Swainson's Thrush. It is certainly reminiscent of
Swainson's but there is something odd about it. To my ear it has some
qualities of a Hermit Thrush as well.

I agree with others that is seems way too early for Swainson's even for
being on the west side. Here in the interior we do not see (or hear)
Swainson's Thrush until very late May or even early June. The weather has
been quite mild here but of course the neotrops wintering in Mexico and
Central America do not know that!

You can hear a Hermit Thrush at: http://birds.cornell.edu/bow/HERTHR/
I'd be
interested in hearing what others think (unless I've missed the discussion).

thanks, Charles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charles E. Swift
Moscow, ID, USA
charless AT moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

Half-a-bee, philosophically must ipso-facto half not-be.
But half the bee, has got to bee Vis-a-vis its entity...
d'you see?
But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee
When half the bee is not a bee due to some ancient injury?
-Monty Python

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html