Patch birding has really made birding fun for me in a way I didn't expect. I've always enjoyed keeping an eBird tally of what I see around our beehives, but I'm really digging keeping track of the park near our new apartment as well as keeping track of what shows up around our apartment itself...but I'm still not a lister.

I got a hermit thrush around our beehives and while I was watching it, I noticed it was kind of shaking its feet. I took some video with my iPhone through my scope and made a mental note to look "hermit thrush foot quivering" up later on the Internet and see if this is a thing with hermit thrushes. Sure enough with my first Google search, Cornell did not fail me. According to Birds of North America Online:

"Foot Quivering: Interpreted by Dilger and also Brown et al. as a ritualized ambivalent intention movement of simultaneous, conflicting drives to attack and to retreat; but also may serve as foraging technique used to locate insects under leaf litter. Brackbill and Kilham cite observations of foot-quivering while foraging, with no indication of the birds being disturbed and Skutch reported a similar observation of Russet Nightingale-Thrush in the non-breeding season and outside of its breeding range."

I love the first part describing it as something the hermit thrush does because it's not sure if it should attack or retreat. "I'm just gonna kick the ground, man."

I don't think this particular bird was disturbed by my presence and that just coming in from migration the bird was most likely looking for some tasty invertebrates in leaf litter. Either way, here's the footage and maybe you might see thrushes doing this in your neighborhood.