Vermont Weekly Bird Notes 6/15/2007

Oldest Bicknell's Thrush Known Found on Stratton Mountain

New Hampshire claims it has the old man of the mountain, but it turns out it is right here in Vermont. It isn’t a pile of rocks though. It is a Bicknell’s thrush and it is twelve years old this month. That might not seem old, but consider this. He weighs about the same as nine pennies, yet he has flown over 50,000 miles in his lifetime during spring and fall migration.

Conservation biologists at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science captured the oldest known thrush last week on Stratton Mountain as part of their long term studies of this thrush. They first banded the bird as a yearling in 1997 at the same location.

The male, hatched in 1996, has spent each summer flying across the ski slopes of Stratton Mountain. He has been captured and released by the biologists over two dozen times during the last decade. Like many of us, he has gained a bit of weight over the years and now is about 2 grams heavier than in his early adult years. Most Bicknell’s thrushes live for only 3 to 5 years.

Bicknell’s Thrush is one of eastern North America’s most rare, at-risk migratory songbirds, believed to number no more than 50,000 individuals across its restricted and highly fragmented breeding range. The species is a habitat specialist, nesting only in fir-dominated montane forests generally above 3,000 feet in elevation in Vermont.

On its wintering grounds in the Caribbean, Bicknell’s Thrush is largely restricted to moist, primary broadleaf forests, many of which have been severely deforested and are poorly protected.

Other Highlights

Rarities this week included a black vulture at Brattleboro Retreat Meadows on June 5 and a late migrating white-winged scoter at Herrick's Cove in Rockingham on June 9.

Least bitterns were found at Lake Winona on June 5, Bristol Pond on June 9 and West Rutland Marsh on June 10.

Two red-breasted mergansers were still present in Brattleboro this week.

A northern goshawk was observed in Richford on June 10 and Woodstock on June 11. The individual in Woodstock was characteristically very aggressive as the observer walked into the nesting territory. Goshawks have been known to hit and scrape unsuspecting human intruders. A male merlin in Middlebury was seen eating a house sparrow on June 7.

A late migrating Swainson’s thrush heard singing in Norwich on June 10. Seven blue-winged warblers were counted in a West Rutland power line right-of-way on June 7. A male cerulean warbler was spotted in North Hero on June 9. A male orchard oriole was found at McCuen Slang on June 8. The nesting of white-winged crossbills was confirmed nesting on the summits of Stratton Mt. and Mt. Mansfield this week by VINS biologists.

You can explore all the birds reported last week in Vermont and add your own sightings at Vermont eBird.