Category: Vermont Birding

Buffleheads Coming & Going

We are going through a patch of crappy weather with spitting rain and temperatures in the high 30’s or low 40’s.  It’s good wood fire weather and not much fun fiddling with tripods, scopes, and cameras.  But, hey, it’s Vermont in November so suck it up and get out there.

Yesterday I took a look at some local bodies of water for new arrivals but only ran into Black Scoters  and these nine Bufflehead way out on Wrightsville Reservoir.

The nice thing about Bufflehead, aside from their “spiffiness,” is that they tend to cruise along and not dive and disappear like Hooded Mergansers.

I went back early this morning to Wrightsville and found only a solo male floating away on the deserted reservoir.  Was he new?  Did his buddies leave without him?  We’ll never know but I suspect he’ll be on his way on the north winds we are getting today.  He’s come a long way from his breeding grounds and still has a way to go before winter.  Neat little birds — great to have them around for a while.

Thursday Digiscoping

I went out with my larger camera and in spite of temperatures in the low 40’s and cloud cover, found some active birds to practice on.  I had forgotten my remote control so I shot in bursts to try to cut down on camera shake.  I fiddled with ISO settings, ending up with 2000 to get any decent shutter speed.  Here are a few birds I found:

A Ringed-necked Duck on Berlin Pond. Vortex Razor HD, 20-60 eyepiece at 20x, Canon EOS 60D, 50 mm lens, & Vortex DCA adapter.

I found a great spot for sparrows at Wrightsville Dam and in spite of the dog’s help, running to and fro, I grabbed a few images.  Sparrows have left our property and I was surprised to see so many species frolicking and singing away.  They won’t be around much longer.

We have recently started to see American Tree Sparrows migrate here and should have them around all winter.
This is the first Fox Sparrow I’ve seen this year. They are likely on their way through to a little warmer climes.

Hoodies Are Here

A visit this morning to nearby Berlin Pond revealed a few Hooded Mergansers, one of my favorite birds, and a raft of Black Scoters out in the middle of the pond.  Hoodies are fun the watch — the males look so dressed up and important, especially with their crest up.  The females often look like they’ve had a bad hair day with the rusty crest fluffed up.  I’m still figuring out which camera to use digiscoping but here’s some shots I took of them:

Hooded Mergansers on Berlin Pond – 10-31-12 Vortex Razor HD, 20-60 eyepiece at 20x, Canon SD4000, Vortex DCA & PS100 adapters.
Male Hoodies with their crest up look pretty spiffy.
A poor digiscoped shot through the trees of a raft of Black Scoters. I originally called these American Coots but the yellow beaks made me change my call.

I’m going to experiment again with my Canon 60D for digiscoping and see if that results in sharper images.  We’ll see if that helps with clarity — although I think that it just takes more practice and better camera settings to match conditions.  Nice challenge for this Fall.

A Couple of Storm Birds

In spite of forecast for high winds and some rain, we escaped Hurricane Sandy with just a little wind and showers.  And so while we we likely didn’t get any rare birds blown in, we also are much more fortunate than our southern neighbors in New York, New Jersey, and the mid-Atlantic region.  The scenes of destruction put things in perspective.

Yesterday in the late morning, I drove down to a doctor’s appointment.  I had put the scope and binos in the truck, just in case.  As I drove by the Wrightsville Reservoir, just down the road from my house, I saw a couple of specs of white on the water as I raced by.  I turned around, drove down to the boat launch, and set up my scope.  A Bufflehead and a grebe were across the water, just resting in place.  I digiscoped a couple of shots and jumped in the truck to get to the doc in time.  Here’s what I saw:

After the appointment, I stopped on my way back.  The grebe had moved away from the Bufflehead and was even further off.  As I was driving off, two birder friends, both more skilled than I, drove up and we spent some time scoping the bird.  It was diving frequently and the light was bad but we settled on a Horned Grebe.  One reason is that the Red-necked is quite a lot larger.

The Bufflehead and the Horned Grebe are nearly the same size so having them side-by-side was a big help.

This is my first Vermont Horned Grebe and thus, first in Washington County.  I’m hoping that we might get a few more strays today.

Images by Dick Mansfield

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Northern Shrike — The Butcher Bird

One of the winter birds that I have yet to see and add to my life list is the Northern Shrike.  We’ve been away much of the last three winters but there’s also been a fairly reliable visitor, which we call the “Appleby’s Shrike,” hanging out in the trees near the popular Berlin, VT restaurant.  Most of my birding friends have seen it but for me, it’s just one of those, “Oh, you should have been here an hour ago” birds.  Close encounters during the winter months I’ve been around.

I’ve seen many Loggerhead Shrikes in my Southwest journeys  —  this winter, one of my goals is to see my first Northern Shrike here in Vermont.  I mentioned that in a Winter Birding – Bring It On post last month.

The shrike hunts by perching atop a tall shrub or tree at the edge of a field where it surveys the surrounding area for songbirds, insects, and small mammals.

The Northern Shrike is a songbird that is slightly smaller then a robin. They breed up up in the Arctic Circle of Alaska and Canada. During the winter you may find them around your feeder if you live in the northern half of the United States. Unlike the other birds they are not there for the nyjer thistle, cracked corn or other type of seed.

A predatory songbird, the Northern shrike sits on an exposed perch and watches for insects, small birds and mammals, or reptiles.  They do not have the powerful talons that raptors use to catch their prey — they grab their prey with their feet, and kill by biting through its victim’s neck. They will impale prey, sometimes while still alive,  on the barbs of a fence or large thorns. They often kill more prey then they can eat, which is how they received the scientific name Lanius excubitor, roughly translated this means butcher watchman. This species is known to pierce its prey onto thorns, sticks, fences and other pointed objects where it will either immediately eat its catch, or leave it impaled to be eaten at a later time.

The main field marks which help to easily identify the Northern Shrike are its stout bill which curves at the tip, and its distinctive black mask which goes from the base of the bill through the eye and to the side of its large head.  Generally speaking, its upper portions are gray and the underneath are an off-white/soft gray with a faint barring on its chest.  Its wings are black with white patches.  The Northern Shrike is a medium sized song bird, yet when it flies by, at first glance one generally thinks it may be a out-of-season Northern Mockingbird because of the similar coloring; however, once you see the curved bill and black mask you know that you have seen a rare visitor from the north.  I’m already looking every time I go past the turn for Applely’s.

Note:  Vermonter Tom Slayton wrote a wonderful article on Northern Shrikes last year.

Image by cheepshot

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New Twitter Background for Vtbirder

The dog and I went out into the woods on a photo mission this afternoon, using the self-timer to shoot a couple of avatar-images for a new Twitter background.  I worked in Photoshop to put together a custom background.  Not a great idea to update on a Friday afternoon before big storm — slow slow page loads. The first draft looks like this:

Come visit me on Twitter.

Hawk Watching Time


Just about when the leaf peepers begin flocking to the roadways to observe Vermont’s spectacular autumn foliage, an equally-enthusiastic set of nature lovers is trekking up the peaks to watch a different seasonal event: the fall migration of raptors. Also known as “birds of prey,” this majestic group includes the eagles, falcons, hawks, vultures, ospreys, and the less-familiar but no-less-impressive group called the harriers, of which North America has only one (the beautiful Northern Harrier). Perched on a mountain outcropping, one can predictably see large numbers of these birds as they make their way to southern climes.

Whether you’re a veteran bird-watcher or a novice, raptor-watching (usually referred to as “hawk-watching,” even though other types of raptors are included) is a great way to spend an autumn afternoon. One of its draws is that the birds are highly visible. Unlike the diminutive songbirds, which hop around incessantly and hide in dense shrubs, raptors are large, steady, and during migration, exposed. Also, because each group of raptors flies differently and has a distinctive shape, these birds are easy to tell apart. The peregrine falcon, for example, has long, pointed wings, which it flaps continuously for its fast, powered flight. In contrast, the bald eagle rarely flaps and its broad, sturdy wings make it look like a flying plank. At the popular hawk-watching sites, you’re likely to find fellow observers on the summit to help you with identification; learn the shapes and flight patterns of the major groups and you’ll be a hawk-watching maven in no time.

So when and where is a Vermonter to begin? The peak of fall raptor migration is from mid-September to early November; try going at different times of the season to see different species. The most popular hawk-watching sites in Vermont are Mount Philo, 15 miles south of Burlington, and Putney Mountain in the southeast corner of the state. Snake Mountain in Addison and Mount Ascutney in Windsor are also decent spots, as are Coon Mountain, just beyond the ferry terminal in Essex, New York, and Mount Tom in Massachusetts, straight down the Connecticut River from Brattleboro.

In addition to being a popular place for recreational hawk-watching, Putney Mountain is also an official migration monitoring site. Because raptor migration is predictable and easy to watch, people have been counting migrating raptors and recording their numbers since 1934, when the first official count site was established at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Since then, numerous similar counts have been established all over the globe, from the Panama Canal to the Strait of Gibraltar. The long-term migration data collected at these sites allow scientists to monitor raptor populations; numbers vary greatly from year to year, but over long periods of time, scientists can identify trends. The decline in juvenile Bald Eagles migrating past Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in the 1970s alerted Rachel Carson to the threat of DDT to these important predators, and she wrote about this trend in Silent Spring, the influential book which led to the ban of that harmful pesticide. Visit the Putney Mountain Hawk Watch just for fun, or participate in the count to play a role in history.
(read whole article from VTDigger.com)

This piece is by Emily Brodsky, a master’s candidate in the ecological planning program at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at The University of Vermont.

Brown Creepers Make Me Smile

Walking in the woods yesterday afternoon, I heard a loud “see” call. I thought it might be a White-throated Sparrow or even a Dark-eyed Junco but as I searched, I saw a little brown bird climbing up a White Pine. It flew over to the lower part of another tree and started climbing as I watched.

Brown Creepers blend in with the tree trunk and can be hard to spot.

Some of my friends have lost their upper range and can’t hear Brown Creepers but fortunately, in spite of being around jets and other planes, I can pick them out.  It helps because they can be really tough to see.  You sometimes can pick them up when they fly or if they expose their white belly.

Getting a look at the white belly helps spotting these elusive birds.

They seem to be oblivious to birders and once you pick them up, it’s fun to watch them spiral their way up a tree, picking bugs out of the bark with their curved beak.  They seem to balance like a woodpecker with their long tail as the work on a stubborn piece of bark.  Every so often, I’ve seen one going up as a White-breasted Nuthatch works its way down.  We have quite a few Brown Creepers in our woods – they are one of species that hangs around so I look forward to their antics this winter.  They are one my favorite birds.

 

Brown Creeper (top image) by Wildreturn    Lower image by David-Mitchell

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Winter Birding — Bring It On

As I noted last week, we are being bankrupted by the influx of Pine Siskins that mob our feeders, leaving their small poops all over everything, and making the Black-capped Chickadees wonder what hit them.  Yesterday, I saw about 25 Dark-eyed Juncoes feeding on the edges of the gravel driveway and thought, “It’s only mid-October but winter birds are here.”

Today, walking in cold foggy woods with rain dripping from the few remaining leaves, I thought more about it.  Still too dark to see much, it made me rely on my ears and I started to tick off the birds out and about.  First, a Hairy Woodpecker called and then I heard it drumming.  Then, one of the many Chickadees called Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee and others gave their a high pitched “see” call.  A far off American Crow cawed and I heard a Red-breasted Nuthatch.  After a quarter-mile of silence, we flushed a Ruffed Grouse.

As I mentally ticked off the winter bird list, I came up with these that I expect to see in our backyard and woods:

  • Black-eyed Juncos
  • Pine Siskins
  • Blue Jays
  • Hairy, Downy and occasionally Pileated woodpeckers
  • Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatches
  • Brown Creepers
  • American Crows
  • Black-capped Chickadees
  • Purple Finches
  • Evening, Pine, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
  • Tufted Titmice
  • American Robins
  • Common Redpolls
  • Ruffed Grouse
  • Wild Turkeys
  • Winter Wrens
Northern Shrike
Northern Shrike is one of my target birds for this winter. There was one hanging out locally last year but I missed it.

I’d like to see Snow Buntings but will look elsewhere, same for Northern Shrikes and Rough-legged Hawks.

So I figure that I can see 10 or 15 species on most of my dog/birding walks or skiing outings this winter.  That’s a nice prospect, as is the possibility of some of the recent rare visitors to this area such as Northern Hawk Owl, Snowy Owl, and Varied Thrush.  Since we’ve traveled south for the last three years, I look forward to my first serious winter of birding in Vermont.  I hope I don’t have to eat those words in March.

Shrike photo by dfaulder

Kenn & Kim Kaufman’s new book

Kenn Kaufman, originator of the Kaufman Field Guide series, is well-known by birders and naturalists across the country. Many of us remember his first book, Kingbird Highway, a wonderful tale of his long hitch-hiking search for birds as a teenager. He and his wife Kimberly, executive director of Ohio’s Black Swamp Bird Observatory, have just released a new book, Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of New England which has an official publication date next week.  In researching the book, they learned that New England offers astonishing surprises around every corner when they set out to research their new guide to New England natural history.

They will be doing a book tour of New England starting the 16th and visiting Bear Bond Books in Montpelier on October 30th.  The event starts at 7:00 PM and will likely be crowded so get there early.  You can pre-order the book now.

They will be leading a bird walk earlier that day at the North Branch Nature Center, a co-sponsor of their visit.  Space will be limited so stayed tuned for details.

This will be a great chance for Vermont birders to welcome Ken and Kim to Vermont.