[Tweeters] Arthur Cleveland Bent “Pacific Varied Thrush: I owe my introduction to this large and elegant thrush to my old friend Samuel F Rathbone, who first showed it to me in the vicinity of Seattle, and who has given me a wealth of information on it in his copious notes. While we were waiting for the good ship Tacoma to sail for Aleutian Islands, in May 1911, he helped our party to locate for two weeks in the then small town of Kirkland across Lake Washington from Seattle —Re: Robins and Varied Thrush

[Dan Reiff via Tweeters]


Hello Tweeters,
Varied thrushes are one of my favorite species.
To add to the great discussion:
1. I have heard them until the last day of May, the last four years on the southern end of Mercer Island. They may nest there.
2. I reviewed the literature from 1911, Life Histories of North American Thrushes, Kinglets, and Their Allies (author: Arthur Cleveland Bent).
He and others did field research near Kirkland, WA and other areas near Lake Washington. They reported nesting in those areas.
I have photographed eight pages of that book and would like to share them with tweeters, but do not have a way of doing so.
I will send them to Blythe, Gary, Dennis and Connie in hopes they have a way of sharing the page photos with Tweeters. If someone else a way of sharing the book page photos please contact me and I will send them to you.
It is interesting, great read.
Best regards,
Dan Reiff

Sent from my iPhone


> On Jan 12, 2025, at 6:02 PM, Blythe Horman via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> Thanks everyone for your research on this, especially Robert Bletsch for looking at historical records in books. I have seen varied thrushes very occasionally during the spring and summer, and my conclusion parallels Robert’s direct quotes. That is, Varied Thrushes nested in the Puget Sound Lowlands until urbanization destroyed their habitat. Then, like many animals, they were forced to breed in more inaccessible, mountainous areas. Also like many animals, in the last 10-25 years, some individuals have begun to return to the lowlands to attempt breeding. How successful this will be remains to be seen. Are there banding records available?

> 

> I think this recolonization of suburban areas is not an uncommon phenomenon. That’s why we now have human-wildlife interaction experts, in the hopes of resolving conflicts with particularly charismatic or feared animals such as cougars, bears, and coyotes without the old method of simply killing the animal.

> 

> As another example of a large, noticeable animal recolonizing degraded habitat, look at the humpback whale in Puget Sound. Unheard of when I moved here in 1991, they are now common enough to be feature prominently in whale watching tour advertising.

> 

> I assume many birds (and other small native wildlife) are attempting to recolonize historical lowland breeding areas, but since they’re not particularly charismatic or usually problematic to non-birders, they don’t get much, if any, mainstream notice. They fly under under the radar, as it were.

> 

> 

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