A bird usually seen only on the West Coast showed up in Lexington. It’s drawing a crowd.
A songbird usually found only on the West Coast has made an appearance in Lexington over the last several days, and birding enthusiasts have been flocking to the neighborhood where it was seen, hoping to catch a glimpse.
The bird, a varied thrush, was first spotted Jan. 16 by a man who lives on Edgemoor Drive and posted a photo on Facebook asking people to help identify it, said Ronan O’Carra, who serves as editor for the Kentucky Ornithological Society’s journal, “The Kentucky Warbler.”
Since then, word has spread through the local birdwatching community, and people have been hanging out in the neighborhood off Nicholasville Road, waiting for an appearance from the little songbird that O’Carra described as “flighty and nervous.”
Andy Mead, who lives on Edgemoor, said he looked out his window one day late last week and saw three or four cars parked on his street.
People with binoculars and cameras with long lenses showed up, and Mead, a bird lover himself, welcomed them.
“They’ve been here since then,” he said. “They’ve been walking up and down the driveway. They’ve put some cracked corn on the driveway to attract the bird.”
Even the extreme cold hasn’t deterred the birdwatchers from their quest.
“For about 30 minutes or so, eight of them were just standing in a line,” said Mead’s stepdaughter, Robin Emmons. And that was Monday or Tuesday, when temperatures were barely into the double digits.
“It’s been pretty cool being bird central here,” said Mead, who spent 34 years as an environmental reporter for the Herald-Leader. He said some of the people who have shown up are photographers and nature enthusiasts he knew through work but hadn’t seen in years.
Others, like Katey Buster, are new acquaintances.
Buster has been out on Edgemoor and captured photos of the varied thrush in a tree. She said she thinks about 40 or 50 others have made the trek too, which Mead confirmed.
Mead thinks the two heated bird baths in his yard might have had something to do with attracting the thrush.
“All that money for birdseed has paid off,” he said.
Buster said someone put out mealworms too, which are a treat for the varied thrush.
“The bird started coming in regularly,” she said. “It’s still coming to Andy’s driveway because of the food.”
“It’s a very beautiful songbird,” Buster said. “The patterns on its feathers ... no bird that comes to Kentucky is like this.”
It might be easy to mistake the varied thrush for “a weird robin,” said O’Carra, since it has a similar shape and exhibits similar behaviors. It also has some rich orange feathering with colors similar to a robin.
O’Carra said this is the eighth recorded sighting of a varied thrush in Kentucky, and he said it’s the first time one has appeared in Fayette County.
The most recent sighting in Kentucky before this one was in 2021, he said.
The varied thrush’s usual range is from Alaska down to California, according to the National Audubon Society, though the organization’s website says “a few stray far to the east every year in fall and winter, some reaching New England.”
“Their compass is off a bit,” O’Carra said. “That’s like a survival trait for a species.”
He said winds or storms sometimes send “vagrant” birds this way, but O’Carra thought it unlikely the varied warbler landed in Kentucky while escaping the wildfires burning in southern California.
He said the thrush is probably a female, but birders aren’t certain, because immature males can have a similar appearance.
This isn’t the first time an unusual bird has had birders atwitter in Central Kentucky.
A pink-footed goose, which usually makes its home in Greenland, Iceland and northwestern Europe, was spotted in Nicholasville and Shelby County in December 2022, drawing birdwatchers from multiple states.
For months in 2021 and 2022, a lone white pelican took up residence at the Jacobson Park reservoir and became a favorite among park visitors and local photographers.
“That’s the joy of birding,” O’Carra said of rare appearances like that of the varied thrush. “Random stuff turns up at people’s feeders. ...There’s just joy in it.”
He said the Central Kentucky Audubon Society welcomes “anyone of any level” to get involved in local bird walks and related activities.
This story was originally published January 22, 2025 at 8:36 AM.
