Wood Thrush

Found in mature deciduous and mixed forests with a closed canopy, deep leaf litter, and moist understory, it spends most of its time flipping leaves and probing the soil for earthworms, beetles, and other invertebrates along shaded forest floors. The rich, flute-like song — a series of spiraling, ethereal phrases often rendered as *ee-oh-lay* — is far more reliably detected than the bird itself, and singing peaks at dawn and dusk when the forest floor is dim and quiet. Visit intact, interior forest tracts from May through July during the first and last thirty minutes of daylight for the best chance of both hearing sustained song and spotting the spotted, russet-backed adult foraging among fallen leaves near the base of mature hardwoods.