Craft of the song thrushes

Commonplace book

"Song thrushes are famous for their ability to smash snail shells to gt the juicy molluscs inside. When a bird finds a snail, it carries it in the bill to a hard surface, such as a rock, tree root, or wall, then pounds the shells on the surface util it breaks open. Surfaces that are profitable for this are used regularly and are known as anvils; they can be identified by their piles of shell fragments.

"The technique of breaking the shell involves a sideways flick as well as a downward thrust. Surprisingly, the song thrush is alone in having mastered this, and blackbirds cannot seem to manage it. Even so, they are often attracted by the sound of the smashing and will sometimes steal the exposed snail at the last moment. The ability to eat snails is particularly useful when the ground is hard and other food isn't available."

- Dominic Couzens (2024). The Hidden Life of Garden Birds: The Unseen Drama Behind Everyday Survival. London: Gaia, 29.

The Tolkien reader will immediately think of the thrushes breaking snails by Bilbo as he sat on the dragon Smaug's doorstep.

An anvil used by song thrushes

A song thrush using an anvil:

Photo by Dion Art - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148024346