Scientists are racing to save a tiny songbird that nests on New England’s alpine summits

Scientists are racing to save a tiny songbird that nests on New England’s alpine summits PlayLoad YouTube videoOn a summer night just before sunset on the summit of Mount Mansfield, biologist Nathaniel Sharp and a crew of volunteers are getting ready to try to catch Bicknell’s thrush. If you’ve spent time on a high peak in the Adirondacks or the summit of Mount Mansfield at dawn or dusk, it might sound familiar to you. They spend summers on tall alpine summits in southern Quebec and New England like Mount Mansfield, and spend winters in the cloud forests of the Dominican Republic. Bicknell’s thrush nest in balsam fir trees, he says, which are very sensitive to hot summer weather. And in the gloaming, a volunteer gently removes a juvenile Bicknell’s thrush from a net — the first of the night.