Late report on varied thrush. Consistent with Jane's report, the Maple Valley segment of the Kent CBC (Dec. 26) had a record number of varied thrush. Looks like the birds stayed high this year.

Mike Scuderi
Cotinga777 at yahoo.com
Kent, WA

-----Original Message-----
From: Jane Hadley [mailto:hadleyj1725 at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2017 3:05 PM
To: Tweeters, Dear <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Where are the Varied Thrushes?

In a New Year's Eve post on Tweeters, Kristi Hein noted that people on the CBC in Anacortes commented on "a notable absence of Varied Thrushes this fall and winter." Gene Hunn chimed in from California saying all of the CBC in the California Bay Area "have noted an extraordinary near absence of Varied Thrushes. It is apparently a widespread phenomenon." Mike Stropki reported "the same experience" on South Whidbey.



This kind of surprised me, because I remembered a post earlier in December noting a large number of Varied Thrushes. I went back to look and found this Dec 17, 2016 Tweeters post from Sharon Cormier-Aagaard:

Stan and I hiked Margaret's Way Trail today in King County's Cougar-Squak Corridor, a trail connecting Cougar Mountain to Squak Mountain (2 of the "Issaquah Alps") just off hwy 900 (the old Renton to Issaquah Road). We expected we'd see Varied Thrush, but NOT in the amazing abundance that we did! About every 1/4 to 1/2 mile, we'd watch 8-40 Varied Thrushes flush up in front of us from the forest floor and angle up into the trees, in all directions, filling the open spaces, especially when there were 30-40+ birds. Birds flying every which way, chupping, perching briefly, then flying a bit further before perching again. This phenomenon went on for 3 miles, to our turn around at Debbie's View. And, the same happened on our return. Incredible.

So apparently they've all decided to move to the Cougar-Squak Corridor.

Jane Hadley

Seattle, WA