(by Pam Hunt)
Now that spring migration is back in full swing, it’s time to see what happened to some of the 27 Wood Thrushes we tagged in NH in 2024 as part of the range-wide Motus project.
As of May 14, 13 of those 27 birds had been detected back in the U.S. after spending the winter somewhere in Central America. In contrast to the fall migration, however, only two of those returning birds were detected south of Virginia. The first of these was over northern Georgia on April 22, after which it “went missing” until moving quicky over southern New England the night of April 30-May 1. Around 5:50 A.M. on the first it was detected by the Granite Lake Headwaters tower in Stoddard – the same tower it was banded year. Since it was at that location around dawn it is reasonable to assume it was coming in for a landing in or near its territory from 2024. Unfortunately, we learned in 2024 that detections are rare in this hilly corner of the state, so it’s not certain how much more data we’ll get in 2025 from this bird.
The only other detection in the southern U.S. was a bird along the coast of Texas on May 9-12. This thrush, banded in Hinsdale, made it all the way to Costa Rica by last November, seemingly via the southeastern U.S. By contrast, its return journey took it west around the Gulf of Mexico, and we await further information as it hopefully continues to move back to NH. Did more of our returning birds take this westerly route, and is that why we’ve had so few detections in the Southeast?
The remaining 11 returnees were not detected until they showed up much closer to home. Most appeared in the mid-Atlantic on April 29-30 and within 2-3 days were back where they were banded. Currently, one of 12 birds banded in southwestern NH has definitively returned (recall the detection issues in this area, however – two others made it at least to Massachusetts, three of the six tagged by Tin Mountain, and all three birds from NH Audubon’s McLane Center. One of the latter is particularly noteworthy because it is less than one year old. Most yearlings do NOT return to the area they were hatched and instead disperse an unknown distance. As such, Wood Thrush #600 has already provided an extra tidbit of valuable data! Two other juveniles banded in Sutton also made it back to New England, with one of them last detected in the Lakes Region. Finally, one of the adults tagged at McLane last summer initially “overshot” its home turf and spent May 1-6 in the Lakes Region, only to return to Concord on May 10. Why did it take that extra flight of 40 miles? We’ll likely never know, but one possibility is that it was displaced by strong southwest winds that brought many early migrants to NH at the very end of April, and made its way back after realizing it was off course.
With data still coming in, we’re hoping that several more of last year’s thrushes reappear in the next couple of weeks (but realize that migration is the most dangerous period in these birds’ lives, and having half back already is pretty impressive). In the meantime, the NH “Wood Thrush Party” partners are already gearing up to tag another 34 birds this summer and continue contributing to this spectacular project.