Hermit thrush

After a relatively balmy, almost-Septemberish warm spell, the air's begun to take on a somber sharpness more in keeping with November. No frost yet, but cool enough that I'm thinking, if it doesn't shower later—and please let it; our need for rain is getting increasingly desperate—that we'll need to crank up the wood stove and I'd best get down to some serious gathering, cutting, splitting, and stacking. I opted for a heavy sweatshirt on the morning's walk, and as if to tell me, "Good choice, naturalist... and you'll be needing warm clothes for a long, long time," I spotted a newcomer to the ridge—a bird that only arrives when the weather begins to get down to serious business. The Hermit Thrush spends the summers haunting the Great Northern Forests of Canada and the conifer-clad parts of New England, but in advance of the snows, it migrates south to our area, where the winters are relatively mild. I thought the rustling along the shrubby sides of the meadow might have been made by dragonflies, but it turned out that the noisemakers were about a half-dozen Hermits, here to take up shelter in my brush piles. Perhaps they'll be joined by another sign of the turning season: the Winter Wrens. I'll try to keep my camera warm and ready for the possibility.