Жалғызшыл сауысқұс – Солтүстік Америка құсы

Species of bird

The hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) is a medium sized North American thrush. It is not very closely related to the other North American migrant species of Catharus, but rather to the Mexican russet nightingale thrush. The specific name guttatus is Latin for "spotted", though historically this species has been given 17 additional species or subspecies names by various authors, now all treated as synonyms.

This species measures in length, spans across the wings and weighs Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the bill is and the tarsus is It is more compact and stockier than other North American Catharus thrushes, with relatively longer wings. The hermit thrush has the white dark white underwing pattern characteristic of Catharus thrushes. Adults are mainly brown on the upperparts, with reddish tails. The underparts are white with dark spots on the breast and grey or brownish flanks. They have pink legs and a white eye ring. Birds in the east are more olive brown on the upperparts; western birds are more grey brown.

Hermit thrushes breed in coniferous or mixed woods across Canada, southern Alaska, and the northeastern and western United States. They make a cup nest on the ground or relatively low in a tree. While most hermit thrushes migrate to wintering grounds in the southern United States and south to Central America, some remain in northern coastal US states and southern Ontario. Identification of spotted thrushes is simplified by the fact that hermit thrush is the only spotted thrush normally found in North America during winter. They usually breed in forests, but will sometimes winter in parks and wooded suburban neighborhoods. They are very rare vagrants to western Europe and northeast Asia. They forage on the forest floor, also in trees or shrubs, mainly eating insects and berries.

The hermit thrush is the state bird of Vermont. Walt Whitman construes the hermit thrush as a symbol of the American voice, poetic and otherwise, in his elegy for Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," one of the fundamental texts in the American literary canon. "A Hermit Thrush" is the name of a poem by the American poet Amy Clampitt. A hermit thrush appears in the fifth section ("What the Thunder Said") of the T. S. Eliot poem The Waste Land. Former Canadian indie rock band Thrush Hermit took their name from a reversal of the bird's name. It is also shared by the American bands Hermit Thrushes and Hermit Thrush.

Winker, Kevin & Pruett, Christin L. (2006): "Seasonal migration, speciation, and morphological convergence in the avian genus Catharus (Turdidae)." Auk 123(4): 1052–1068. DOI: 10.1642/0004 8038(2006)123[1052:SMSAMC]2.0. CO;2