Vermont Rare Bird Reports 2024

Kathryn Lauer
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Broken clouds

Temperature: 51°F

Wind: Mostly calm - moderate breeze

Wind Direction: N - W

Cloud Cover: 63 - 65%

Humidity: 42 - 43%

Sunrise: 5:25am

Sunset: 8:07pm

Zeiss SFL 8 x 40

GCTH: Limited and previous detections have all been nocturnal migrants identified by flight calls in appropriate ranges.

BITH: More familiar, having seen this species in VT and NH on several occasions.

While I've seen far less Gray-cheeked and Bicknell's Thrush than other Catharus species, I've spent a lot of time learning what ID points I could.

Residential habitat: Lawn and small stands of trees between homes (observed at close range from WITHIN home).

The bird was actively foraging on the lawn adjacent to the trees that separate my home from the neighbor's.

Silent. I attempted to elicit a response from the bird through vocalizations when I searched for it in the yard, but it did not react to the playback of either of the likely species.

Per eBird: A lone Catharus thrush was observed at close range from the window of our home. The bird was medium-sized and lacked a prominent eyering (SWTH) or strong rufous tones in the tail (HETH). Its upperparts had a uniform cold stone-gray color, including a grayish wash over the face, with no hint of buff. The underparts were white with a strong grayish flank. There were absolutely no traces of rufous in the tail or wings, which I specifically looked for to determine if it could be a Bicknell's Thrush (BITH). The bill did not stand out as being noticeably more yellow in both intensity and extent. I attempted to elicit a response from the bird through vocalizations when I searched for it in the yard, but it did not react to playback of either species. While the possibility of a Bicknell's Thrush exists since they breed in county and regionally, based on the observed features, I believe it is more likely to be a Gray-cheeked Thrush if its worthwhile considering a non-vocalizing bird.

Obvious Catharus thrush; plump and medium-sized with a relatively small bill.

Its upperparts had a uniform cold stone-gray color, including a grayish wash over the face, with no hint of buff.

Standard thrush-like bill. Short and straight. The bill did not stand out as being noticeably yellow in both intensity and extent.

Uniform stone-brown/gray, without obvious reddish tones; cold in color.

Same as other upperparts.

There were no strong rufous tones in the wings, which I specifically keyed in on to determine if this could have been a BITH.

Whitish with grayer flank; moderate spotting on breast and portions of throat

Medium-length; gray-brown without any reddish hints.

Wood Thrush and other expected Catharus thrushes. Wood ruled out by color, size, and intensity of spotting. Hermit and Veery are ruled out by the entire lack of reddish tones in the tail or across the back. Swainson's is ruled out by lack of buffy in the face, particularly coming from spectacles.

The only other contender is BITH, which, is arguably a tough ID and one many will say cannot come from silent individuals.

I did my best to find features that lean/average towards Bicknell's, but couldn't find any to latch onto (reddish color, esp. on tail and primaries), smaller size (subjective on a lone bird, yes), primary projection (again, subjective perhaps), and base of mandible color).

No. I recognize that this is a challenging ID and it might best be left as a slash. However, I did my best to push the bird to a species and this is where I landed. And FWIW, as a Vermonter, I'd have preferred for it to be a vocalizing BITH, but, I couldn't make it happen, so, there's no bias here. Just what I saw. Surely Chris Rimmer will weigh in. He can tell me no on this. I can take it from him!