Adventures In The Northeast: February 2014

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Me and Birds

I wanted everyone to enjoy some of the good, bad and ugly photos that have been taken of me talking with birds on my arm. I'd love to have some caption contests for some of these :)

Thursday, February 6, 2014

I went birding! Which isn't something I do a lot of, or at least as much as people might expect for calling me the 'bird lady'. To be honest I struggle with the attention part of it. It can also be really disappointing if you don't see what you traveled for. I also stink at identifying specks of birds through binoculars. That Northern Hawk Owl was easy, it was right off the road and a guarantee, as he'd been there for weeks. My advantage today, was my partner Neil, who is one of my roommates and a legit birder. So we took off and went pretty much straight east to the New Hampshire coastline.

Just going to the coast was beautiful. There were a lot of beaches, a lot of mansions, and even surfers!

We also saw some cool birds. Water birds were tough for me (lots of specks bobbing in the waves), and I don't have any photos. But we saw a red-throated loon, red-breasted mergansers, common goldeneyes, buffleheads, scoters, common eiders, and long-tailed ducks. (I'm expecting Danny to be the only one that knows and is excited by all of these.) We also saw a bald eagle as well as gulls, ring billed and black backed.

We saw some small birds like robins, juncos, sparrows and bluebirds. We also spent a considerable amount of time looking for a rare (for this area) spotted towhee. This is a western bird who usually stays west of the Rockies, but was all the way over here! The little guy was pretty cute. This was my best picture which is laughable:

Here's an internet picture so you can appreciate how stunning it is:

We also spotted a merlin, which I've never observed so easily in the wild.

But I went on this expedition for one bird. The elusive snowy owl. And I saw one! Oh she was gorgeous. And just hanging out on a telephone pole along the coast. I just stared at her for so long while Neil left to look at more water birds. I tried taking some photos with my phone through my binoculars....but mostly I just gaped at her.

I also ate some fresh clam chowder by a beautiful coastline. It was a pretty fantastic and lucky day.

Quechee Gorge

The Quechee Gorge is one of the main reasons people stop in this town, there is state park, and I live right next to it.

I took a few photos from the bridge a few weeks ago:

This is looking up river:

This is looking down river:

Then yesterday, we had a snow day at VINS. What that means is the nature center was closed, and no one could get there but the interns who can walk. So we got up early, took care of everybody that needed to get taken care of and was done by lunch time. We played a round of Settlers of Catan. Then we grabbed some snowshoes and went down into the gorge. The trail connects right to VINS property, and is only about a mile round trip.

We actually ended up getting at least a foot by the end of the day, so it was fun to break trail. (those are my three roommates).

It was a peaceful walk through the woods and then down to the water. We are upriver from the bridge, and that is where I took the earlier photos from.

That's me, in case you forgot.

And then up river a little more from where we just were, is a dam. And behind the dam is Dewey's pond, and across the pond is the Quechee Inn where my mom and I stayed when we first got here.

It was a pretty great snow day.

Adventure in the Mountains

So the Green Mountain State, it's gorgeous, and I could drive through it all day. And I did spend most of a day driving through the mountains a few weeks ago in pursuit of a Northern Hawk Owl and the from the need to explore.

The Northern Hawk Owl had been reported being at the same location for the past few weeks about an hour from me, so I plugged it in the gps and set off. And I still just love every second of driving through the mountains. Don't scold me, but I spend a lot of the time trying to capture the beauty them, but I never am satisfied. You all just need to come see them for yourself. To be honest, sometimes when I'm driving I get the Misty Mountain song stuck in my head from the Hobbit, because that's what they look like.

I arrived to the destination to find lots of people with ridiculously expensive camera equipment. Thousands of dollars. They have cameras hooked up to scopes that are the size of dinner plates. Honestly they spent the whole time complaining about the poor lighting where the owl was at rather then talking about how awesome it was!

I on the other hand, did not get a good picture. This is the best I got. But I did enjoy watching him through my binoculars for a bit. I guess I should give some background, it is unusual for a northern hawk owl to be as far south as he is, so it's a rare sighting. It was also my first time seeing one in the wild, so it was a fun thing to check off the list.

And here is a photo from the internet, so you can see how beautiful they are.

Then I decided to get back in the car and keep driving northwest all the way to Burllington, which is on the coast of Lake Champlain. Checkout the star on the map to see where I was :)

Lake Champlain was gorgeous and there is not much more to say. I took a stroll along the water and stretched my legs a bit.

Another driving photo in the mountains....

I stopped at a little town called Montpelier for a gas, and I discovered it was the capital of Vermont. I am very slowly learning about this New England place...

And I was not able to get a good photo of any of it, but I was able to watch the sunset over the mountains on my way home.

Program Birds

The last post was photos of the exhibit birds, now I want to share some of the program birds. These birds are not on display for they public, but they do their work in programs. I don't have photos of them all yet, but I'll share what I do have.

First off, there are four program birds that are flown in programs. The only one I don't have a photo of yet is the Harris Hawk, but I will get one soon because he is gorgeous. The other three are an American Kestrel, a Red-tailed Hawk, and Rough-legged Hawk.

The Kestrel is the cutest thing ever. He is an imprinted bird (doesn't know he is a bird) and therefore likes hanging out with people. He has no physical injury, so no flight limitations.

The red-tail is a big lady. She ran into power lines when she was a juvenile and her wing never healed correctly. She does not have full flight mobility, but can do short flights in programs.

The rough-legged hawk looks similar to a red-tail (they are both buteos). This lady has a larger head, a bigger wingspan, and feathers down her legs. She collided with a vehicle, her wing never healed correctly, but she also can do short flights in programs.

Then we have some owls. This a great-horned owl. You can see he has damaged in his right eye due to a collision with a vehicle. He hoots constantly which is cute.

This a barred owl. He is blind in his left eye due to a collision with a vehicle. Barred owls have the oddest 'expressions' in my opinion.

A Barn Owl - this might be my favorite type of owl. They are majestic looking, they cackle and hiss, and they are movie stars (the main character in the guardians movie).

I haven't worked with this guy yet, but it's an Eastern Screech Owl who had his left eye removed because of damage.

Another bird I don't have photographed because I haven't worked with him yet is a male red-tailed hawk.

And finally, a turkey vulture. This is a great old lady (33 years old) who occasionally wanders around the wildlife building. She is the most ladylike and polite turkey vulture I've ever seen or heard of.

That's all I got on this topic, for now. I am sure I will take hundreds more photos of them, and have many more stories, as these are the birds I will be working with closely.

p.s. You may have notice I didn't say any names, that's because they don't have them. It is a way to help visitors understand that these are not pets, but wild animals. Also, even if they did have names, the birds would not care or even recognize them.

Exhibit Birds

I want to share with you the amazingness that is the exhibit birds at VINS. They are all non-releasable birds (so have some sort of disability that would prevent them from surviving in the wild), and some were rehabilitated at VINS while others were from different centers. I'm not going to do breakdowns of each bird or species, so if you like the looks of one, do some research of your own for now. Perhaps I'll share stories about these guys later. But I do not participate in the husbandry of these guys at all. I just get to walk by them every once in a while and ogle them. So just enjoy it already.

Snowy Owl