solitary, the thrush

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"In the swamp,

in secluded recesses,

A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.

Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.)”


- From When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d
an elegy written by Walt Whitman
shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

Poet Whitman knew this species. Heard it sing its warbling song, shy and hidden.

Sadly, at this time of the year on its winter range here in the South, the hermit thrush does not sing. There's no need. No territory to defend. No female to woo. No dead president to mourn.

Cornell describes it as, "An unassuming bird with a lovely, melancholy song." And that's pretty much spot on. Unassuming.

I first took the above photograph and posted it, four years ago. I'm pleased to say the hermits are back. I saw one quietly, and indeed, unassuming, hoping around my home in the woods near my studio last Tuesday morning.

Lucky me.

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200 years

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Today is the 200th anniversary of both the birth of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. That's remarkable. The planets must have really been in alignment. I wonder who else was born on that day?

I’ve read several good articles of late about both men in magazines like Smithsonian and National Geographic.

It took twenty years of careful thought and observation before Darwin published "The Origin of Species." It anguished him because he knew the implications. Before devoting his life to the natural sciences, he was about to become a minister. His trip with FitzRoy on the HMS Beagle was to look for evidence of the biblical great flood, but what he found–especially the mammal fossils he discovered at Punta Alta on the east coast of South America–lead his thoughts in another direction. Darwin’s writings on evolution contained a lot of educated guesses; guesses that have stood the test of time. Genetics and the existence of DNA were unknown to him, but now that we know about each, modern research has determined just how insightful he truly was. He would have been delighted to be so vindicated.

One little tidbit that underscores his thoughts on the interrelatedness of all species found in the NG article “Modern Darwins”: geneticists have isolated one small gene they have labeled FOXP2 that is found in both humans and birds. It is critical to the development of both speech in our species and song in birds. Without it, birds have trouble singing and we talking.

So, in April, when I hear my first wood thrush of the season singing from the woods behind my house and I calmly say, "Oh, what perfection," I can quietly smile knowing that we owe both remarkable acts to good old FOXP2. Darwin would have been so pleased to know.

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