Category Archives: home patch

Paddling With Mergs

Until the last few days, we’ve had a small group of Common Mergansers on the river behind our house. In several kayak outings I’ve mixed with them, and when I had my camera onboard, trying to photograph them. With a moving river, skittish birds, and trying to balance the boat and the paddle, it’s an interesting challenge.

Up ahead are five mergansers already easing away from me as they see the boat.
I got four of them in the frame
The next day I got them going upstream.
They settled for a bit and I was able to get abeam of them
Hey, let’s get moving south and away from that guy with the blue boat.

The river is pretty barren now, as are the trees, and frost is in the forecast. We’ve had good birding this season on the North Branch of the Winooski.

Backyard Birds

We are fortunate to get a nice variety of birds to our small backyard where we have some feeders, lots of brush, and the river. Here are a few visitors from the last two weeks.

A cool White-throated Sparrow in the garden. Note the band, probably from NBNC, on the left leg.
Another sparrow, might be an adult White-crowned Sparrow.

Some of our daily visitors, wanted or not, are Rock Doves – better known as pigeons.

Another persistent visitor, who is a voracious feeder, is the Blue Jay.
A young Northern Cardinal.
A few Hermit Thrushes are still hanging around.
American Goldfinches will be here through the winter.

We have noticed an increase in the need for the expensive sunflower hearts and discovered one significant reason.

Slurpin’ up the seeds.