Varied Thrush by Neal Maine.
Fun Fact: Discovered in Doug Ray’s back yard in March, 2017.

About Neal Maine:

After a thirty-year career as an award-winning biology teacher at Seaside High School, Neal Maine became the first executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, which he co-founded in 1986. Since his retirement from the land trust in 2010, he has pursued his passion for nature photography through PacificLight Images, dedicated to raising awareness of coastal ecology and the wildlife with whom we share the region’s estuaries, freshwater wetlands and forests. Their photography centers around coastal and Columbia River landscape, ecology and the rich estuary habitat with the surrounding wetlands and forest systems. PacificLight Images is dedicated to working with coastal communities to protect wildlife habitat and its connectivity. A percentage of all photography sales are donated to North Coast Land Conservancy to help further this goal.
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THE COASTAL EDGE
In cycles older than time, forces deep within the earth push apart tectonic plates, creating and expanding the oceans whose waters are pushed and pulled by the sun and moon, cooled and heated and calmed and stirred to fury by the skies. Ocean collides with continent, shattering the shore into a thousand facets: bare rock monoliths, vast expanses of sand, saltwater pools that drown, then drain, then drown, then drain. And in that shattering, life asserts itself, creeping and burrowing and swimming and perching in particular niches, particular flora and fauna whose collective presence defines THE COASTAL EDGE.
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NATURE’S TRAILS
A limpet creeps up a wave-washed rock, following the rise of the tide. A salmon follows ancient watershed trails to its natal stream. An otter travels along its living trap line for crabs in the estuary to crayfish up side creeks. A vole tunnels into the soft sponge on the forest floor. In the treetops, in the forest, across the land, in the water, and in the air, all become a living slate for NATURE’S TRAILS. This tracery of interwoven trails are unsigned but indelible to generations of travelers.
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THE NEXT FRONTIER, OUR OWN BACKYARD
Humans: We take pictures, walks, deep breaths, memories, rides on waves, water, timber, in habitat that used to belong to other trail makers. We thought we could never catch all the salmon, never cut all the big trees, and never pollute the ocean. In our hubris, we thought we could make our own trails. With renewed humility, we are learning how to share this place, to live together with our partner trail makers. PacificLight Images celebrates this partnership as we use our images to inspire others to honor nature’s trails in OUR OWN BACKYARD.
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To view a catalog of images by Neal Maine, please go to http://www.fairweatherhouseandgallery.com …artists/ Neal Maine.

Q: What make the Varied Thrush unique, you ask?

A: Does much foraging on the ground, usually under dense cover but sometimes in the open, it can surprise birders in winter; may use its bill to toss leaf-litter aside as it searches for insects.
The haunting songs of the Varied Thrush echo through the lands of the Pacific Northwest. Long minor-key whistles repeated after deliberate pauses, they seem like sounds without a source; only a careful searcher will find the bird itself.

Although it looks superficially like a robin, often nicknamed the Alaskan Robin, the Varied Thrush is very elusive. Could be vulnerable to loss of habitat through cutting of northwestern forests. Currently still common.

For more info go to http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/varied-thrush