Home › R › Range (Breeds in the higher parts)

Range (Breeds in the higher parts)

Breeds in the higher parts of the Catskills and northward to the White Mountains and Nova Scotia; winters in the tropics. Washington, apparently rare T. V., two instances, May. Cambridge, rather common T. V., May 15 to May 25; Sept. 25 to Oct. 6. Nest, essentially like that of T. swainsonii, both in construction and position. Eggs, greener and more finely spotted than those of swainsonii (Brewster, Minot's Land Birds and Game Birds, 2d ed., appendix, p. 468). "In northern New England Bicknell's Thrush breeds from an altitude of about three thousand feet (scattered pairs may be found lower than this) to the extreme upper limits of tree growth, but most abundantly among the dwarfed, densely matted spruces and balsams which cover such extensive areas on the upper slopes and ridges of our higher mountains. Here, in an atmosphere always cool and ordinarily saturated with moisture from passing clouds, it spends the summer in company with such birds as Swainson's Thrushes, Winter Wrens, Yellow-rumped and Black-poll Warblers, Juncos, White-throated Sparrows, and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers. In many places it is quite as numerous as any of these species, and in certain favored localities it probably outnumbers them all put together. Nevertheless one may spend hours in its chosen haunts without getting a fair view of a single individual, for, despite (or perhaps really because of) the fact that these solitudes are rarely invaded by man, Bicknell's Thrush is, while breeding, one of the very shyest of our smaller birds. ... "The song is exceedingly like that of the Veery, having the same ringing, flutelike quality; but it is more interrupted, and it ends differently, the next to the last note dropping a half tone, and the final one rising abruptly and having a sharp emphasis. The ordinary calls are a whistled pheu practically identical with that of T. fuscescens, a harsh note which recalls the cry of the Night Hawk, a low cluck much like that of the Hermit Thrush, and a pip or peenk similar to that of