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Snow Buntings visit Waitsfield

Sandra snapped this shot of Snow Buntings feasting on white millet at a platform feeder in her yard in Waitsfield.

Birding the January Thaw

Bohemian Waxwing

Pine Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls

High temperatures, rain, freezing rain, high winds – not welcome weather in the middle of January in Vermont. However, sometimes interesting birds show up during turbulence. This winter has many irruptives (birds that normally winter in Canada, but show up when food supply is short) visiting our area. [...]

Hoary Redpoll Sighting 12/23/07

This winter many Common Redpolls are visiting Vermont — typically they arrive in large numbers every other year when their food supply in the northern boreal forrest crashes. We think Pat found one Hoary Redpoll within a flock of 70 Common Redpolls. The red spot on the head looks smaller than on the Common, also [...]

Sandhill Crane Family in Bristol

For the past two or three years, birders have reported a pair of Sandhill Cranes near Bristol Pond (Winona Lake), about 4 miles north of Bristol Village.  This year the couple successfully raised one offspring known as a colt.  These Sandhill Cranes have been feeding in fields around Bristol all fall and are still around [...]

October is Sparrow Month

As the temperatures drop, leaves turn, and daylight hours diminish, most of the warblers have headed south, but birding is still good.  The geese, raptors, and sparrows are moving through.
The Song, Chipping, Swamp and White-throated Sparrows are still around; White-crowned, Lincoln’s, and Dark-eyed Juncoes are showing up in good numbers, and Fox and American Tree Sparrows will [...]

Rare Black-tailed Godwit Spotted on Mad Birder Trip

On Sunday, April 29, Mad Birders spent the day birding the Champlain Valley and the flooded fields of Addison County.  While scanning the extensive expanse of water near Cedar Swamp Bridge in Salisbury Station, trip co-leader, Carl Bates, called our attention to some birds he’d spotted across the meadow.  One of them was very different [...]

Late Snow Brings Birds to Roadsides

An early April storm dumped up to a foot of the white stuff on our Valley this week.  Today I found many birds feeding in a frenzy at the feeders in the yard and several species along roadsides where the plow had scraped all the snow away.
On a Sherman Road walk, I found two Killdeer [...]

White-winged Crossbills

I just returned from a short walk, hoping to find the red-bellied woodpecker again. I failed on that mission, but did see three white-winged crossbills (2 males, 1 female) on the west side of East Warren Rd between my sister’s house (3615) and mine (3681). They were in the poplar and birch treetops, nibbling buds. [...]

Red-bellied Woodpecker Spotted off East Warren Road

While taking a walk through the woods, looking for Brown Creepers and Golden-crowned Kinglets, Dawna Foreman and I were surprised to see a Red-bellied Woodpecker fly and land on a nearby tree.  I was so excited that I jumped up and down whooping it up.  Of course the bird flew off, but not too far.  [...]

Snow Buntings in the Valley

The Mad River Valley is a vacation spot for Snow Buntings, a bird species that breeds further north than any other land breeding bird.  Flocks of these birds have been spotted in fields and along roadways this winter – just south of the intersection of Routes 100 and 100B, near Tremblay Rd and Route 100, [...]