Bird of the Day

A couple of days ago someone spotted this bird at the Salisbury Beach State Reservation in Massachusetts, and since I was coming up the NH coast this morning I thought it worth a gamble to detour a few miles out of my way and was well rewarded. A Sage Thrasher is not a bird one ever expects to see in New England, being more at home in the arid scrub deserts of the southwest and Mexico at this time of year, but thanks to the internet word spreads quickly about rare vagrants. This is North America’s smallest thrasher. If it sticks around until the weekend it will be quite an event—birders will be flocking from all over to add it to their state, year, and life lists.