[EBB Sightings] Varied thrush photo ops?

As Daniel Edelstein kindly pointed out to me, calling
the appearance of many more than normal varied thrush
an "irruption" does disservice to the term as commonly
used in science. Although the dictionary defines
irruption as "a sudden increase in an animal
population", in fact the term is more generally used
to describe an atypical population of birds driven
from their normal habitat through some sort of
negative environmental influence, like when the local
woods are filled with crossbills (like a magical
encounter I had with dozens and dozens fluttering into
a creekbed on Mt. Tam, 20 some years ago), or
Minnesota seeing an invasion of multiple Snowy Owls
(like happened recently in the Midwest).

This is not to say that the large numbers of Varied
Thrush we are seeing have not been driven here by
environmental influences. Perhaps we need a new term,
like migruption?

Debbie Viess 

--- Doug Greenberg  wrote:

> Hello all,
> We all know now that we are seeing the biggest
> Varied thrush irruption in 
> many years...