Weather like this can generate spectacular birding. Fallout conditions occur when warm air from the south or southwest meets colder air to the north. The collision can produce fog, rain, and swirling winds – weather you might not consider suitable for birdwatching. But these conditions can cause countless birds – migrating north on tailwinds – to drop from migration and into view.
The Forecast Calls for Birds by Bryan Pfeiffer
Photo by Gerrit Vyn
BOOM! and the birds are just dropping outta the sky! Well, not exactly but this week’s weather has meant for a pretty impressive yard-list for me. Especially since I live in the city of St. Albans!
Use the link above to check out Bryan Pfeiffer’s blog for the weather low-down and why it’s raining warblers and flycatchers and scarlet tanagers.
My yard list this week:
Blackpoll Warbler (by far the superstar!)
Magnolia Warbler
Least Flycatcher
Scarlet Tanager
Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Wood Thrush
American Redstart
Red-eyed Vireo
Nashville Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Possible female Bay-breasted Warbler
Possible Pine Warbler
And the usual suspects:
Black-capped Chickadee
Catbird
Blue Jay
Chimney Swift
Mourning Dove
Song Sparrow
Cardinal
American Robin
Eastern Phoebe
Downy Woodpecker
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Caspian Tern Numbers Up on Lake Champlain
WARNING: Super cute baby terns - watch at your own risk. Took a little trip to the Four Brothers Islands on Lake Champlain for my NewsChannel 5 story last week.
Looking Out For Vermont's Loons - WPTZ Conservation Correspondent News Story
Had a great time with Eric Hanson, LoonWatch Coordinator with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. Watch the video to learn more about loons in Vermont and how you can help!
The Vermont Loon Recovery Project (by AudubonGuides)
The coordinators from the Vermont Center for Ecostudies are requesting that folks continue to report loon sightings throughout the summer. Visit this webpage to get the details on Casual Surveys.
Just gotta repost this one…I love this because it is what Vermont is all about in the spring. Plus, there aren’t that many sugarbushes left still using buckets, very cool. Thanks icapturelight for sharing…
Sugaring in Fairfield, VT.
Sugaring in the spring is a great Vermont tradition. Vermont is the biggest US producer, with 3,369,016 litres (890,000 US gal) a year. I was fortunate to be able to help my roommate on his grandfather’s farm and snap a couple photos.
Hawks in winter in VT?
Photo: Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Hi Bridget,
My student and I have some questions for you. We have seen some hawks in Vermont in December, but we don’t know what species they were. Are there any hawks that stay in Vermont all winter, or were these ones late stragglers in the migration southward?
RESPONSE:
Hey there!
You bet there are hawks hanging out here during the winter! Some leave and some stay…how do we figure which ones are which? Well, whenever I have that question I have a couple of resources I run to to figure out the answer. If my copy of the book Birdwatching in Vermont is nearby, I’ll grab that and go to the charts in the back. They give me a quick look by month of each bird species seen in Vermont. Great book, would be awesome for a budding birdwatchers collection.
Or, if I’m near the computer, I’ll go to Vermont eBird and find the seasonal bar charts for the months I’m curious about and look to see what I find there.
Here, I’ll give you a hand…here’s a link to birds seen in the months of December, January, and February for the years 2000 through 2011.
Pull the raptor names from that list and then grab a field guide! Let me know how it goes or if you have any tricky ids!
Bird-on!
Bridget
Spent the day weeding cobble beaches along Lake Champlain, Vermont to help prepare nesting sites for the threatened Spiny Softshell Turtle.
I had been pitching Channel 3 WCAX for a couple of years on a story series linking the conservation work being done on Lake Champlain for Common Terns and on the coast of Maine for the Atlantic Puffin. This summer Sharon Meyer & I got our wish. Here’s the first in the series; I hooked Sharon up with Mark LaBarr Audubon Vermont Conservation Biologist to visit a Common Tern colony on Lake Champlain.
