VEERY Catharus fuscescens (Stephens, 1817)

Accepted: 10 (38%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 16	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 4	Color image: none

This species’ northern breeding limit reaches from northeastern and south-central British Columbia, eastern Washington, and northeastern Oregon east to southwestern Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine. The breeding range extends south through the Rocky Mts. to south-central Colorado, east-central Arizona (formerly), and north-central New Mexico (formerly), and south through the Appalachian Mts. to northern Georgia. The known wintering grounds lie in central and southern Brazil (Tyler 1949, Remsen 2001). Migration occurs primarily through the central and eastern United States, the West Indies, and southern and eastern Middle America. Extralimital records come from extreme southeastern Alaska, northern British Columbia, Arizona (outside of the breeding range), northern Chile (Ridgely and Tudor 1989), the British Isles, and Sweden. A very few individuals have been well documented in the Northern Hemisphere during December and January but none is known to have successfully overwintered north of South America (see Remsen 2001).

California’s first Veery was discovered on 20 October 1973 on Southeast Farallon Island (DeSante and Ainley 1980). A bird present 12–16 October 1974 at Big Sycamore Canyon in Ventura County was the first to be physically documented (with a photograph). Three decades later, legions of birders directing intensive effort toward locating vagrants in the state have documented a total of only seven Veeries during fall (19 September–5 November) and three during spring (17 May–24 June); see also Appendix H. Indeed, this species and the Gray-cheeked Thrush remain remarkably rare in the state considering their distributions, migratory ways, and abundance. Veeries, after all, breed as close to California as northeastern Oregon and are fairly numerous in eastern Washington.

As discussed in the essay entitled “Birding in California, 1960–2006” (see page 35), passerines possessing ten primaries, including the thrushes, appear to be less susceptible to navigational errors than are those with nine. In addition, thrushes are retiring by nature, and both the Veery and Gray-cheeked Thrush can be difficult to distinguish from Hermit and Swainson’s Thrushes, variable species that are common and widespread in California. Committee acceptance of only four of every ten reports of the Veery emphasizes this point and highlights the need to document records of this species with particular care. Works by Patten (1997), Pyle (1997b), and Lane and Jaramillo (2000b) review geographic variation and identification.