Memorial Day Vermont

I am heading up to vermont on saturday to do annual birding with the bestest uncle in the world, uncle Michael. He has a cabin in southwest vermont, with tons of birds in his backyard. We are also planning to go to the North East Kingdom. Last year we broke 100 birds for the weekend. This year some target species include:

• Golden Winged warbler


• Bicknells thrush


• Mourning warbler


• Cape May warbler

Update

I apologize for the lack of a recent post. I am done some awesome birding including cape may in fall, sea ducks in winter, and a trip to costa rica. I have all sorts of pictures to post. In August I did some awesome shorebirding with my Uncle, including a trip to plum island massachussets. white rumped sand pipers were very numerous, and gave good identification looks. At one shorbird stop we were treated by a peregrine falcon divebombing yellowlegs !

PEREGRINE FALCON

Here are some more recent pictures. I have so many to post, especially the hundreds from Costa Rica.

Fine One Costa Rica Teaser

Northeast Kingdom-Vermont

Sorry for the lack of posts. Here is a trip I took back on Memorial day Weekend.

I went into this spring migration with the confidence I would be able to identify tons of warblers and migratory birds. I listened to calls nearly every day, and believed I knew everything. I had a humbling experience when My uncle brought me birding in Vermont. He is amazing with his calls and knowledge. He knew almost every call of every bird wether it be thrush, flycatcher,vireo,or warbler. Together with my knowledge and his, we ended the weekend with 98 species! It was awesome as I picked up 2 lifers. We started at a cabin in southern vermont where I had my post from last year. We had most of the same species as last year, except we picked up Olive sided flycatcher which has the infamous, quick three beers call. The road with the cabin has enough birds alone, to keep me busy for a weekend. There were black throated green,black throated blue,blackburnian, and chesnut sided warblers all over the place. Here are some of my shots!!

After a day of birding around the cabin we made a 4 hour drive up to the Northeast kingdom. The Northeast kingdom is a part of the boreal forest which jets down into vermont. Because of this, it gives a unique chance of seeing rare birds, not normally seen breeding in the U.S. Our target spot was Moose Bog. It is well known for boreal species including spruce grouse,boreal chicadee,black backed woodpecker, and other warblers,magnolia,nashville, canada. We got magnolia, nashville, black backed woodpecker(lifer). It was awesome. the habitat is completely different than that of westchester NY. There were all sorts of cool mosses and plants.The next stop was silvio O conte NWR. It was a huge reservation with tons of birds. We ate lunch listening to a mourning warbler. We walked down dirt roads, with fir and spruce trees on both sides. There had to be thousands of nashville and magnolia warblers. Along one of the roads,we had boreal chicadee which is another lifer bird. We also got good looks at a canada warbler. One of my favorite birds, but always elusive. It was one of the best birding weekends I've had, and looking forward to next memorial day to do it again. Still need that Cape May for life list!!!!!!Hopefully my Uncle will read this and decide to bring me to Arizona my senior year!!!

This is a picture I took at Moose Bog. This was where the Black Backed Woodpecker was hanging out.

This blue headed vireo was in the heart of the bog. You can see lichens growing on the trees.

On the last day of the trip we headed up to Okemo Mountain. Commonly known as a skiing destination in the wintertime, Okemo becomes a wonderful place to bird in the spring. All birds are habitat specific making them unique to different areas. For example worm eating warblers like wooded slopes. Hooded warblers like thick understory, and there are birds that call mountains their home. For example the Bicknells thrush. That was our target bird for the Okemo expedition. Unfortunatelly for me, but fortunally for my uncle, he would have to wake me up at 5 to get their early to possibly hear the bird. Uncle Michael likes to make waking up an eventful and fun process. Anyways we got to the mountain early and started walking to the top. You can drive up making it a lot easier than hiking the whole way. As we started walking we heard many birds, including magnolia warbler,winter wren, purple finch,sapsuckers,but no thrushes. Another cool addition to the list of the weekend was a Blackpoll warbler which is another bird of high altitude. Its always nice to see birds in their habitat. My uncle also taught me how to tell the purple finch apart from a house finch call. It was alot of fun :)

More central park

Went to central park last friday again!! Another great day with some awesome species. had wilson warbler and Bay breasted warbler!!! Also had my favorite magnolia warbler. I got some nice shots. I am ordering a flash that I hope will make warbler shots even easier. Here are some pictures i got

may 2nd Central park

Today I went down to Central Park for some may warbler birding. Following reports from the past two days I had high expectations. They came through with 18 species of warbler. The highlights were lifer blackpoll and cerulean warbler. We also had 2 blackburnian and 10+ nashville warblers. Got some ok pictures, more document shots of cerulean blackpoll and nashville. I am hoping to go again soon and will be sure to post what I see

Heres list

Blackburnian

cerulean

y rumped

Black throated blue

" " green

parula

prarie

blue winged

worm eating

nashville

yellow

ovenbird

northern waterthrush

blackpoll

palm

common yellowthroat

redstart

b+white

Long Island Birds

Went down to Long island yesterday. First stop was Heampstead Lake state park. We went for migrants but found nothing. I did find a blue gray knatccatcher nest which is pretty fun to watch. We were there on the 25th last year and had around 5 warblers. Aftere striking out at Hempstead we traveled to Oceanside marine study area. There are always birds there. We had yellow crowned night herons, tree swallows, osprey, yellowlegs,pectoral sandpiper. I got some pretty decent pictures. I hate this time of year where the sun gets so high in the sky.

Early warbler

Palm warblers are always one of the first warblers to reach Ny state. I also have had pine warblers singing in my backyard lately. These shots are of a Palm warbler that is almost in fully breeding plumage. Soon the warblers will arrive in numbers and BirdBoy will be doing work. Expect a lot of pictures this may.

My schedule

early may-central park a few times

mid may-capemay weekend

end of may- northern vermont

B1rdBoy