Ileen and Tweeters,

Your birds are almost certainly Swainson's Thrushes. Veery is
almost unknown west of the Cascades, although common in parts of
eastern Washington. "Breeding Birds of Washington State" (Smith et al.
1997)
shows only one breeding-season record of Veery west of the Cascades--
on the Whatcom/Skagit County line, presumably near Newhalem.

Coincidentally, a detailed article on identification of Veeries
and Swainson's Thrushes, by Daniel Lane and Alvaro Jaramillo, was just
published in the June 2000 issue of BIRDING magazine. To quote Lane
and Jaramillo: "Veery and Swainson's Thrush, although easy to
separate in the East, are deceptively similar in the West, where
"Russet-backed" Swainson's Thrushes are often misidentified as
Veeries".

Swainson's Thrushes in western Washington belong to the
"Russet-backed" group, which can look almost as pale and as
russet-tinged as a typical Veery. However, their calls and songs are
typical of other Swainson's Thrushes. I am puzzled that you say the
songs you are hearing do not match those on your bird tapes. What
tapes are you using?

Swainson's Thrush songs tend to spiral upward in pitch, whereas
Veeries spiral downward. Both, in my opinion, are among the most
beautiful of all bird songs.

I presume that you do not belong to the American Birding
Association, or you would have seen the above article. I would
strongly recommend you consider joining. For information, check the
ABA website at www.americanbirding.org . Their magazine, BIRDING, has
many excellent articles on bird identification, bird finding, etc.


Sincerely,

Wayne C. Weber
Kamloops, B.C.
wayne_weber at bc.sympatico.ca


-----Original Message-----
From: Ileen Weber <iweber at seanet.com>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 06, 2000 8:05 PM
Subject: Thrush Question


>I live in south Everett by a protected wetland -- a creek, streamside
>thickets and bordering woodland.
>
>I have been trying to identify a song for weeks. It is distinctly
>thrushlike. None of my bird tapes records this particular song for
any
>thrush species.
>
>It's a secretive bird, singing in the early morning, afternoon and
>evening. One bird will sing and another will echo the same song
>immediately after.
>
>Earlier in the season I thought I had identified both Swainson's
Thrush and
>Veery. Today, what I finally was able to see with my binoculars
appeared
>to be a Veery. It was singing from an branch about 15 feet above the
>ground. It had light spotting on it's throat and a reddish tint
above,
>with no eye ring I could identify. In the NGG it looks like a
>Veery. There are at least 2 here, probably more. Sometimes it
sounds like
>3 are singing from different locations.
>
>However, according to Wahl and Paulson the Veery does not occur on
the west
>side of the Cascades.
>
>What else might it be? Is it possible to have a Veery in this
location?
>
>Ileen Weber
>Everett, WA
>iweber at seanet.com
>