The exceptional year for vagrant thrushes in the ABA Area continues with the discovery on Sunday, March 13, by Christopher McPherson of an ABA Code 4 Redwing in Hollis, New Hampshire, just west of the town of Nashua. In addition to being a noteworthy bird for the ABA Area this is a potential 1st record for the state.
I originally had subject bird at 10:30 am on the back side of the baseball field (the baseball field with the scoreboards) in the thicket along Love Ln and shortly after on the baseball field in several locations with a large number of Robins, the bird was spotted again at 3:00 pm and again at 6:30 pm by other birders in the area of the baseball field.
Tomorrow is a school day so there will be school bus traffic in the area starting as early as 6:15 am, I spoke with the Hollis Police today to let them know what was going on given the crowd, they didn’t have any issues with folks parking along John Smith way as long as they kept the road passable, if that fills up you can park on the main road but do not park in school parking lots or bird to close to the school. I don’t recommend driving down Love Ln it is a dead end with no turn around and residents have posted signs accordingly.
Redwing is a highly migratory Turdus thrush with a number of records in the eastern ABA Area, most from Canada’s Maritime Provinces but scattered as far south as Pennsylvania. Its much less common in the west, and is known from only a few records, most recently last December in British Columbia. Surprisingly, there are no western Alaska records of this species, though it is suggested in Howell, et al’s Rare Birds of North America that this may be due to movement occurring after birders have mostly left the vagrant traps in the Bering Sea and Aleutians.