No matter how long you have been bird watching, there is always something exciting just around the corner.
By JULIE HART CorrespondentTake, for example, a short foray to Lake Runnemede in Windsor this past weekend when, quite to my surprise, I encountered a flock — you heard right — a flock of rose-breasted grosbeaks, that remarkable bird with the red patch on its breast that visits our feeders in the summer. I didn't realize until that moment that grosbeaks formed single-species flocks.
Imagine the surprise of an avid bird watcher who visited Red Rocks Park in South Burlington on Sept. 9 and observed 15 species of warblers.
Among these, was a rarely-observed denizen of the South. Yellow-throated warblers breed throughout much of the southeastern U.S., where they inhabit riparian bottomlands and swamps or dry pine forests. Nests are built high in the canopy where they are extremely difficult to find and monitor, explaining why so little is known about their breeding biology.
Their song, a lilting, descending trill that ends in an upward slur, drops down from the trees and you are lucky to catch a glimpse of the owner. If you did, you would immediately notice the bright yellow throat and distinctive black, white and gray markings elsewhere, including a streaked breast, white eye line, black cheek, gray nape, and white wing bars.
As a canopy species, you might expect yellow-throated warblers to compete with the closely-related pine warbler, which also carries out much of its breeding cycle out of sight at the tops of trees. However, the yellow-throated warbler has evolved into a slightly different niche, owing to its longer bill and habit of searching for insects in bark crevices and pine cones. We would think it resembled the behavior of brown creepers and black-and-white warblers.
This probing, foraging manner also prevents it from directly competing with Grace's warbler on its wintering range. It migrates south and east to scrubby, forested and mainly coastal areas in the southeastern U.S., Greater Antilles, and Central America.
For unknown reasons, the breeding range of yellow-throated warblers constricted in the late 1800s. However, since the 1940s we have seen a reoccupation of their former territory. The cause for this expansion is also unknown, but is apparently not due to changes in available habitat. Despite these range changes, their population is stable and they rank low on the national bird conservation priority list.
Black-legged kittiwakeOther SightingsOther rare sightings this past week included four visitors from the far north. Keen-eyed observers on Lake Champlain spotted a Sabine's gull, black-legged kittiwake and pomarine, long-tailed and parasitic jaegers (the latter three being larger gull species).
Boreal species are making their move, including the Philadelphia vireo, and Connecticut, Cape May, Wilson's, and bay-breasted warblers. Don't forget to look up this time of year — you might notice a large kettle of migrating broad-winged hawks.
Broad-winged hawkWhat you can do:You can explore all the birds reported last week in Vermont and add your own sightings at
http://www.ebird.org/content/vt.
The Vermont Center for Ecostudies is a non-profit research organization dedicated to the understanding and conservation of birds and other wildlife. With a reach extending from northern New England through the Caribbean to South America, our work unites people and science for conservation.
Click here to visit the Vermont Center for Ecostudies online.
Sabine's gullPosted by Sheryl Rapee-Adams, Best Friends Network Volunteer
Story retrieved from here and reprinted with permission from the Rutland Herald
Photos courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service