Veery

About the Veery

The Veery is the plainest of the brown forest thrushes to look at and arguably the finest of them to hear - its song a breathy, downward-spiraling "veer-veer-veer" that seems to harmonize with itself, produced by singing two notes at once through the split voice box all songbirds carry but few use so hauntingly.

Texas hears that song only in fragments. Here the Veery is a migrant, slipping through in late April and May and again in early fall on its way between northern deciduous forests and an Amazonian winter range - one of the longer commutes among the thrushes.

The look is understated: warm cinnamon-brown above - brighter and more uniform than its spotted cousins - with only faint smudgy spotting across a buffy chest, and the family's upright posture and big dark eye.

Like the other Catharus thrushes it travels at night and spends layover days low in shaded cover, hopping quietly on the ground. A cooperative Veery in a Texas greenbelt in migration is a quiet, classy prize - the kind of bird that rewards the birder who checks every thrush.