This morning, west of Blood Brook along Elm Street near its  
intersection with Hopson Road in Norwich, a Yellow-throated Vireo was  
singing to the south. It then flew across Elm Street and eventually  
landed and continued singing while perched in a willow tree to the  
west of Hopson Road where I saw it through binoculars. It then flew to  
the opposite side of Hopson Road where singing continued. At that  
moment, Chris Rimmer happened to be driving by and stopped to hear the  
bird singing. This bird was perhaps wandering through the area. It  
provided my first ever sighting of this species within the town of  
Norwich.

After Chris left, at that same location on Hopson Road, two Carolina  
Wrens were singing from different directions. Shortly thereafter I  
heard another  Carolina Wren singing in the vicinity of the  
intersection of Hopson Road and Beaver Meadow Road and then a little  
later still another singing towards the eastern end of Elm Street.  
There were thus today apparently four singing  Carolina Wrens. In this  
same area through much of the winter and early spring of this year I  
sporadically detected only one singing Carolina Wren, usually near the  
Hopson/Beaver Meadow intersection.

A question is whether the Carolina Wrens now present were here earlier  
in the year but simply quiet then or whether there might have been a  
more recent influx of Carolina Wrens. According to the authoritative  
Birds of North America (BNA) on line, only the males sing. One  
possibility might be that some of the present singers are young males  
hatched locally this year. The BNA indicates that adult song appears a  
minimum of 40 days after hatching, so, if some of the presently  
singing birds are young of the year, their hatching should have been  
no later than during the first week of May, which would require that  
incubation of the eggs began in April, perhaps a good possibility for  
this area.

George Clark
Norwich, VT

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