Laura Erickson's For the Birds

This exquisite thrush prefers to be heard, not seen, but its song is so distinctive that many people in the years before the Merlin app called me asking what they were hearing while sitting on their deck at dawn or dusk. If they used the word “spiral” in their description, I knew they were talking about Veeries. Their more raspy call note hardly sounds as if it were coming from the same bird, but that’s the vocalization that seems to say Veer!

I always expect to see or at least hear Veeries in moist woods with ferns. We in the North Woods get to enjoy Veeries throughout summer in the north woods (though they become very secretive during and after nesting). They winter all the way down in South America.