[BIRD NOTES] ~ February 8, 2010

Torpid Downy © Paul Miller and Grey Fox © Sally Warren 

 

Bird Notes

 

 

A Rare Grey Fox
I don't report much, but here are 2 pix of a Grey Fox in Woodstock.  We had seen tracks and we were in possession of one of those game cameras that is activated at night by motion.  We ate a chicken en famille and put the carcass out.  These are the two pictures the camera took.  According to the resident expert, while even red foxes can have a grey phase, this is a grey fox by virtue of the black tip to its tail.  They can climb trees and they are quite rare.  Next chicken dinner, we will put the carcass in a tree and see what we get.

---Sally Warren, Woodstock, VT

 

 

Vernon’s Torpid Downy

I am enclosing a picture of a Downy Woodpecker that seemed to be asleep. He stayed by my suet feeder for about a half an hour without moving. I was able to get within a few feet before it decided to fly. The eye seems to be covered with the nictitating membrane, but the flash is reflected slightly from the eye itself. I am calling a "he", but I think it may be a juvenile or female.

Thanks again for your column.

---Paul Miller, Vernon, VT

 

 

A Beautiful Day of Solitude in the Wenlock WMA.

2 male White-winged Crossbills

3 Boreal Chickadees

2 Gray Jays

5 Red-breasted Nuthatches

6 Purple Finches

2 Hairy Woodpeckers

1 Downy Woodpecker

0 Spruce Grouse.. Oh well...

The previously reported N.HAWK OWL offered excellent views right by the

snowmobile crossing along Rt105, perched vigilantly atop a spruce. There was also a N.Shrike in a treetop along a stream two miles south of Island Pond on Rt 114.

---Dave Johnston, W. Brattleboro

 

 

Local Birds

After hearing nothing but “chips” all winter, this morning our resident N. Cardinal was singing, Cheer! Cheer! Cheer! 

 

On Abbott Road this afternoon I found 2 Robins, 2 Bluebirds and 6 Cedar Waxwings helping themselves to the bittersweet berries in a roadside tangle. Across the field at Gateway Farm sat a handsome Red-tailed Hawk in a sugar maple, soaking up the afternoon sun. On Barrows Road in Marlboro we watched a very richly colored Robin tear into a frozen apple on the ground beneath an apple tree. Nearby in an apple tree sat a Barred Owl engrossed with something in the grass below his perch.

 

 

PROGRAM NOTE

Beaver Friends and Other Goings-On

In the Dark

 

7 p.m. Tuesday, February 16

 

Patti Smith, naturalist with BEEC, will relate the sounds and sights she experienced during a Vermont night with her beavers around their pond.

 

In the Community Room of the Brooks Library

Sponsored by the Southeastern Vermont Audubon Society

FREE and open to the Public

 

Please keep us abreast of what birds you are seeing, whether at home or on a trip in or out of the Windham County area.

Al Merritt

W. Brattleboro, VT

chpmnkx@sover.net

 

Southeastern Vermont Audubon Society

www.sevtaudubon.org

 

A friend is someone who reaches for your hand

 and touches your heart.