The Wood Thrush and Eastern Forests

BirdNote^®

Wood Thrush, Songster of the Eastern Forests

Written by Dennis Paulson

This is BirdNote.
[Long sound break of the Wood Thrush song]
How lucky we are that one of the most beautiful of all bird songs can be heard in the forests of eastern North America. Listen to the rich, fluting song of the Wood Thrush as it floats through an eastern deciduous forest.
 [Wood Thrush song]
But for Wood Thrushes, not just any woods will do. They do best in large blocks of intact forest, whether in eastern North America or the rain forests of southern Mexico and Central America. Unfortunately, forests at both ends of their winter and summer range are being cleared for pasture, agriculture, mining, and housing developments.
[Sound of chain saw]
As forests become ever more fragmented, they become inadequate to support these birds. For example, many predators live outside the forest but move in from the edge. With more, smaller, tracts, there are more edges and greater effects. So Wood Thrush numbers have declined appreciably in recent years.
[Wood Thrush song]
We can help Wood Thrushes and forest birds everywhere by controlling human population growth, and by setting aside and restoring large urban and suburban green spaces. As these spaces become more and more like native forests, the Wood Thrushes will return to repay us with their beautiful songs.
[Wood Thrush song]
For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.
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Call of the Wood Thrush provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by G.F. Budney.  Boreal ambient also recorded by G.F. Budney.
Producer: John Kessler  
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson 
 © 2010 Tune In to Nature.org

ID# SotB-WOTH-01-2010-05-27              

 The Sibley Guide to Birds. 2001 Edition. Page 406.