The thrush family of birds are well known to all of you, except you might not know them as thrushes. The thrush family contains birds like the American robin, eastern bluebird and wood thrush.
I know what you are thinking. So what! Ah, but now that you know the American robin is a thrush, I can take you into the more dangerous side of these beautiful and common birds found just about everywhere.
The American robin, with all her simple beauty and normally calm demeaner, hits full stride in the nesting season. This is when they show their warrior/defender spirit. I have simply found no other songbird with the level of tenacity that the thrush has.
On this day, in my blind, my day dream is interrupted when a wing-beating and thrashing sound erupt from the tree to my right. I quickly whip my head around to see a common grackle tear out of the tree. Right behind him, only inches from his tail feathers, is an American robin. I follow them with my eyes, as they dart into the woods, flying between trees at a very fast speed. God only knows how they can do that without smacking into a tree branch and dying. The fight ends abruptly as the grackle makes his way to the feeder, across the yard from me.
The robin is now all fluffed up and on the ground lecturing the grackle in bird speak. Also known as chirping. They are both damaged a bit physically, but nothing serious. The grackle seemed stunned by what happened and the robin retreats to a nearby branch to preen. This is when I photographed her in the image above.
This war plays out every year across the amazing kingdom of birds, but for the thrushes, it is game on. They don't care how big the foe is, they will engage them with extreme tenacity. So, the next to time you see a a robin hopping along the ground, just know that you are in the presense of a warrior.