Birdnotes: [BIRD NOTES] April 4, 2007

Bird Notes

Look for These Arrivals the First Week in April:

Horned Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Northern Shoveler

Redhead

Oldsquaw

Osprey

Merlin

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Winter Wren

Water Pipit

Loggerhead Shrike

Field Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

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Add Tree Sparrow, Song Sparrow plus the Blackbirds to my last list. It’s nice to hear of all the waterfowl that you are reporting.

---Barb Cole, Wilmington, VT

We came home today from a wonderful trip to Costa Rica to find a field of about 100 +/- Snow Geese here in Vernon.

---Mary and Paul Miller, Vernon, VT

Meg and I went out with some visitors late this morning. On the corn fields north of the Marina, we saw about 25 Snow Geese. Also our first Belted Kingfisher of the season, and a muskrat swimming in the pond below the Top O' the Hill Grill. We then went down to the Setbacks (in Hinsdale). Highlights there included a mature Bald Eagle sitting in the top of one of the trees on the island; a large number (150+/-) Ring-necked Ducks 6-7 pair of American Wigeon; numerous Common Mergansers; above all, a flock of about 200 Snow Geese flew by over the main channel of the Connecticut, trailed by maybe 50 Canada Geese.

---Ned Pokras & Meg Kluge, W. Brattleboro, VT

At Herrick's Cove today - a singing Swamp Sparrow and a Northern Flicker.

---Hector Galbraith, Dummerston, VT

Abbreviating Birds

A common method of abbreviating names of birds is to call a bay-breasted warbler a baybreast. Or instead of saying, “great blue heron,” you just say, “great blue.” So a red-winged blackbird becomes a redwing and a pied-billed grebe is a piedbill.

One day John Andrews and I drove to a suburban street to look for a red-bellied woodpecker. Arriving at the designated address, we saw two ladies in the backyard. Assuming, incorrectly as it turned out, that they were also birders, John yelled, “Hi! Have you got a red belly?” Fortunately we were gone before the police arrived. ---Gerry Bennett

At the Hinsdale Setback late this afternoon we added to Ned and Meg’s list:

A pair of Gadwall, 28 Green-wing Teal and a couple of dozen Tree Swallows. At the West River on Marina Rd., a pair of Common Goldeneye, 7 Wood Ducks and a Golden-crowned Kinglet. Circling over the mountain near “Wally World” were 14 Turkey Vultures (no Black Vultures yet).