All, After much searching, I finally found a location that has decent numbers of SWAINSON'S THRUSH in Chenango County. For many years, it seemed easy to get this species in New Michigan State Forest Pharsalia NY during summer. This year I did have one singing bird on the Old CCC Truck Rd well west of the intersection of North Rd. I had this bird singing one time among three trips. This state forest in particular used to be a stronghold of this species for many years outside of the Adirondacks and Catskills. Logging and the tornado in 2011 seems to have hurt this species in New Michigan SF.
I checked out Pharsalia Wildlife Management Area today and was pleasantly surprised to hear at least 4 SWAINSON'S THRUSHES singing on CCC Truck trail near the large bend( 42.623006°N and 75.707625°W). There are a lot of younger spruces there amid scattered large spruces. I definitely heard 4 singing males and possibly one more farther down. This is the most I have had in one location up there in many years. There were a lot of MAGNOLIA WARBLERS in this general area and other locations nearby. BLACKBURNIAN WARBLERS were quite common in the deep spruce woods along with mixed spruce / northern hardwoods. GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS also were very numerous. Each of these species I confirmed breeding as you could hear begging young all over. Here is my list which has two audio recordings of the beautiful song of SWAINSON'S THRUSH. https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S91180525 Best, Dave -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
