Birders happily hike all day just for the rush of a thrush The Bicknell's thrush was a star at Rangeley's birding festival earlier this month, and may become a future star at Saddleback ski area. Share Nora Cochrane, left, of Biddeford and Jeanne Tucker, right, of Kingfield search with other birders for a Bicknell’s thrush on June 12 on Saddleback Mountain Deirdre Fleming photo A 67-year-old birder from Texas traveling on a two-month birding junket also was uncertain. A woman three months pregnant questioned if her first hike of the year should be so steep. All three birders joined more than a dozen others who came to hike Saddleback Mountain in search of the Bicknell’s thrush, a bird that breeds only in the boreal forest and only more than 3,000 feet above sea level. The species was the featured star in the four-day Rangeley Birding Festival two weeks ago with three half-day hikes offered to try to find it.