How the Hermit Thrush became Vermont’s official bird, June 1, 1941

by Timothy Page

On June 1, 1941, a small, reclusive songbird earned one of the highest honors the state of Vermont could bestow. No. 1 of the Acts of 1941 formally established the Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) as the official Vermont State Bird, effective that very date. It was the culmination of a campaign that had actually begun fourteen years earlier — and it was not, by any measure, a simple or uncontested victory.

A Vote Long Overdue

The story of the Hermit Thrush’s designation starts not in the halls of the legislature, but in the schoolrooms and meeting halls of Vermont’s communities. In 1927, the people of Vermont had already picked the Hermit Thrush to be the state bird. The effort was part of a nationwide wave of civic enthusiasm. As with other states during the 1920s, local Federated Women’s Clubs were hosting campaigns to select a state bird, working alongside local Audubon clubs and garden clubs, and then typically organizing a vote held in schools. In Vermont, the Hermit Thrush was quickly chosen by popular sentiment — but lawmakers failed to make it official for well over a decade.

When the Vermont Legislature finally took up the matter in 1941, the path to passage was not smooth. Some legislators were not keen on picking the Hermit Thrush at all, feeling that since the bird migrated south for the winter, it wasn’t a true Vermonter — they would have preferred the American Crow or the Blue Jay instead. It was a pointed objection, rooted in a particular idea of what it meant to represent a place: a symbol, these legislators argued, ought to stay put.

Supporters of the thrush reframed the question entirely. Rather than defending the bird’s residency, they pointed to its song and its statewide presence during the warmer months. The record is not entirely clear, but the Hermit Thrush was selected to represent Vermont, among other things, because it has a distinctive sweet call and because it is found in all of Vermont’s 14 counties, according to the Office of the Vermont Secretary of State. The argument held. The skeptics relented, the vote passed, and the thrush was made official.

The Bird Itself

What exactly did Vermont choose? The Hermit Thrush is a modest-looking creature by the standards of showier birds. It is a small brown bird with a spotted breast and a reddish tail, belonging to the family Turdidae — the thrushes, relatives of the American Robin. The word “thrush” is thought to be related to the Greek verb meaning “to twitter”, a nod to the vocal nature of the group. At roughly 6.75 inches long, the Hermit Thrush is easy to overlook on a forest floor — and that, in part, is by design. Its brown, spotted plumage allows it to blend in well with the sun-dappled forest floor where it spends much of its time foraging.

The bird’s most celebrated feature is its voice. Its musical, flute-like song is considered one of the most beautiful of any North American bird, earning it the nickname “American nightingale”. The song is constructed unusually: unlike many songbirds that use one voice, Hermit Thrushes can sing with two voices simultaneously, creating a harmonious and ethereal effect. The notes well up from the forest undergrowth — spiraling, rising, hovering — before dissolving into silence.

The naturalist Montague Chamberlain described the thrush’s song in 1882 as a “vesper hymn that flows so gently out upon the hushed air of the gathering twilight”. Henry David Thoreau, similarly moved, wrote that “the thrush alone declares the immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest.” It is often the only bird still singing at dusk, and the first to sing in the morning.

A Forest Life

Despite its fame as a singer, the Hermit Thrush lives quietly. The species prefers forest interiors with openings — such as ponds or meadows close by — and for breeding utilizes young to mature mixed woodlands and moist coniferous forests. It forages on the ground, turning over leaf litter in search of insects, spiders, and earthworms, supplementing its diet with berries and small fruit, especially outside the breeding season. Biologist Kent McFarland of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies has even observed hermit thrushes stuffing small salamanders down nestlings’ throats.

The Hermit Thrush can be distinguished from other thrushes by its characteristic tail-flicking behavior: when it lands on a branch, it often raises and then slowly lowers its tail. This habit, combined with the reddish tail contrasting against its olive-brown back, makes identification possible even in low light.

The species is one of the first woodland migrants to return to northern New England in spring, arriving in April. It leaves Vermont in mid-October and winters south of Pennsylvania — heading to the southeastern United States, Mexico, and along the West Coast. This was, of course, precisely the behavior that had troubled those skeptical Vermont legislators in 1941. The bird’s supporters, though, had the better argument: in every county of the Green Mountain State, through every spring and summer, the thrush arrives and fills the woods with its voice.

Symbol and Stability

The choice has aged well. According to bird surveys, the Hermit Thrush population in Vermont is stable or possibly even increasing — a result, researchers suggest, of the bird’s tolerance for disturbance and its preference for large mature forests. A long-term study by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, tracking 31 mature forest stands over 25 years, found no significant decline in hermit thrush populations — even as overall bird abundance at those same sites dropped by 14%. Some researchers theorize that hermit thrush numbers remain stable in Vermont because they winter in the southeastern U.S. and are not dependent on tropical forest, unlike many Neotropical migrants whose numbers have fallen sharply.

Still, the long view carries warnings. Audubon’s climate models predict a contraction in summer range, with a potential loss of up to 73% of the Hermit Thrush’s current summer breeding range by 2080 — a finding that would, if realized, strip Vermont of its state bird’s summer presence. The bird that was once deemed not quite Vermonter enough may eventually find Vermont too warm to call home.

85 Years of Official Song

Today, eighty-five years after the Vermont Legislature settled its debate and signed No. 1 of the Acts of 1941 into law, the Hermit Thrush remains the state’s official avian symbol — codified in Vermont Statutes, Title 1, Chapter 11, Section 497: “The state bird shall be the hermit thrush.”

Eight words. One bird. And on any quiet evening in a Vermont forest — the light going amber, the understory cooling — the case makes itself.

Sources: Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department · Birdwatching Bliss · Birdzilla · NH Charitable Foundation / Outside Story · National Park Service · Netstate · USA Symbol · Zoo Guide