III · Rare & Notable Birds of New Hampshire

Birds at the edge of something

"Rare" here isn't one thing. A bird can be rare because New Hampshire is the last cold mile of its range, because it only passes through for ten days a year, because it needs a habitat the state has almost none of, or because whether it shows up at all depends on lemmings two thousand miles north. Each of these is a different kind of hard, and a different kind of trip.

10 species, ordered rarest first. Every entry names the specific reason it's difficult and the realistic way in. Sourced from NH Audubon, NH Fish and Game listings, and eBird.

Bicknell's Thrush

Catharus bicknelli · Thrushes

The song at dusk from inside the krummholz — a thin, spiralling, flute-like phrase that rises at the end, more nasal and more upward than a Swainson's or a Hermit.

Why it's hard: Range edge and a tiny footprint. New Hampshire is near the southern limit of a global range that's essentially six Northeastern states and Atlantic Canada; the bird only uses a sliver of habitat above 3,000 feet, sings for barely an hour a day, and stays hidden inside the shrubs while doing it.

Rare

Spruce Grouse

Falcipennis canadensis · Grouse

Usually a bird already on the ground in front of you at close range, walking, unbothered — the "fool hen" that won't flush — a dark chicken-shaped grouse with a red comb over the eye.

Why it's hard: Range edge, tiny population, and remote habitat. New Hampshire is the southern tip of the range; the bird needs large unbroken boreal conifer forest, of which the state has little, all of it two-plus hours from the population centres.

Rare

Black-backed Woodpecker

Picoides arcticus · Woodpeckers

Loud, deliberate flaking of bark off a dead conifer — big pale chips on the snow at the base of the tree — and then a stocky woodpecker with a solid black back and, on the male, a yellow crown.

Why it's hard: Habitat specialist at its range edge. It depends on a short-lived resource — the wood-boring beetle larvae that flood into conifers in the first few years after a fire or an insect outbreak — so the birds are thin on the ground, patchily distributed, and tied to disturbance events in a small northern area.

Scarce

Boreal Chickadee

Poecile hudsonicus · Tits and Chickadees

A chickadee that sounds congested — a slow, wheezy, nasal "tsick-a-day-day" with the energy drained out of it — coming from high in a spruce.

Why it's hard: Range edge and habitat fidelity. New Hampshire sits at the southern margin of a mostly Canadian range, the birds stay tight to mature wet conifer forest, they forage high and quietly, and they don't come to feeders the way their Black-capped cousins do.

Scarce

Saltmarsh Sparrow

Ammospiza caudacuta · New World Sparrows

A small, sharp-tailed sparrow that flushes low, flies twenty feet just over the grass tops, and drops back in — with a bright orange-buff triangle around a grey cheek.

Why it's hard: Habitat specialist with almost nowhere to go. It nests only in a narrow band of high salt marsh on the Atlantic coast, New Hampshire holds a thin northern edge of that, and sea-level rise is now flooding nests faster than the birds can adapt — one of the steepest declines of any bird in the region.

Scarce

Razorbill

Alca torda · Auks

Far out past the surf, a small, stubby, black-and-white seabird flying low and fast on whirring wings, dead straight, with a thick head and a heavy blunt bill held slightly up.

Why it's hard: A true pelagic bird that only comes near shore in winter, stays well out when it does, and turns up in unpredictable numbers driven by ocean conditions and food. You need the right day, a scope, sea-watching experience to call a distant alcid, and some luck.

Scarce

Snowy Owl

Bubo scandiacus · Owls

A big white lump on the flattest, bleakest ground around — a dune crest, a jetty boulder, an airport fence post — that turns its head and watches you with yellow eyes.

Why it's hard: It doesn't come every year. Snowy Owl flights are driven by lemming cycles on the Arctic tundra — a boom summer produces many young that push south the following winter, a bust summer produces almost none. In a big irruption year they're findable; in a quiet year, there may be none in the state.

Scarce

Rusty Blackbird

Euphagus carolinus · Blackbirds and Orioles

In a wet March woodland, a "grackle" that isn't — slimmer, shorter-tailed, with a pale yellow eye, walking through flooded leaf litter and flipping it rather than striding a lawn.

Why it's hard: Not so much rare as thin, brief, and easily overlooked. It moves through in small numbers during two short windows, keeps to flooded woods birders don't often walk, travels mixed in with commoner blackbirds, and the whole North American population has fallen by an estimated 85–95% since the mid-1900s for reasons still not fully understood.

Uncommon

American Pipit

Anthus rubescens · Wagtails and Pipits

A slim brown bird walking — not hopping — across bare ground or a beach, bobbing its tail constantly, flushing with a thin "pip-it" and flashing white outer tail feathers.

Why it's hard: Two different problems. The alpine breeders are a handful of pairs on the most exposed, weather-battered ground in the Northeast, at the very southern edge of an Arctic-alpine range. The migrants are genuinely regular but cryptic — brown, ground-hugging, and gone the moment you take your eye off the flock.

Uncommon

Long-tailed Duck

Clangula hyemalis · Ducks and Geese

A small, round, boldly pied sea duck well offshore, diving constantly, the drake trailing two long needle tail feathers — and on a still day, a yodelling, almost musical call carrying off the water.

Why it's hard: Not rare so much as offshore and weather-dependent. The birds winter on open salt water, often past the surf line, and a rough or foggy day means you won't pick them out; you need flat conditions, a scope, and a bit of patience on a cold jetty.

Uncommon

A word on chasing

Several of these birds are here on a thread — the Saltmarsh Sparrow's marshes are flooding, the Rusty Blackbird has lost most of its numbers in a lifetime, Bicknell's Thrush breeds on a few dozen summits and nowhere else. Go see them. Also: keep your distance from nesting alpine birds, stay on the trail in the krummholz, don't broadcast playback at a Spruce Grouse in April, and give a hunting Snowy Owl room. The bird was here before the list.