An update with some birds spotted in the last month or so.
Bufflehead, bucephala albeola
Goldeneye, bucephala clangula
Mallard, anas platyrhyncos
Common Loon, gavia immer
Cedar Waxwing, bombycilla cedrorum
Rose breasted nuthatch, sitta canadensis
Mourning dove, zenaida macroura
The loons were a bit surprising, seen on the "broad lake" portion of Lake Champlain. Loons had forsaken Lake Champlain, and much else in Vermont, for a long time, because they require crystal-clear water, and Champlain is, or was, muddy in the lower end, and not very clean in the upper. Apparently a combination of good and bad has led to their return. Zebra mussels, an alien scourge, have had the effect of clearing the water, and environmental efforts have managed, apparently, to clean it up a bit. Even so, they're expected to appear when they do in fall, and leave. But the upper lake never froze this year, so apparently they've stayed. They're expected to go back to the little inland lakes for summer. The ones we saw were rather far out, but I followed them for some time with a powerful spotting scope, and after trying on every other possibility of what they might be, we settled for what they had looked like in the first place. A welcome return.
March has arrived, and it seems a lot of the local birds think spring is on the way. Many pairs, and some we hadn't seen for a while are resurfacing. Some as usual these days, never left. We've had peregrine falcons all winter, as well as more bluebirds than ever before. I surmise that some of the conditions north of us have changed, because some northern birds we say last year have not appeared in such numbers. Fewer rough-legged hawks, and in their place the Red-tails we usually see in summer have stayed put where last year they moved out of the way. And no snowy owls.
We're still trying to figure out an eared owl we saw at dusk a while back. Too big for a screech, a bit too small for a great horned, but detail was not visible, and scale is, of course, subjective. But it pretty much leaves us with the Long Eared Owl, asio otus, which would not be out of range, but I'm hesitant to put it down as a 100 percent ID. I'll leave it up to the experts on that.
)
