SPRING MIGRATION!!

Right now, it's "snraining" outside, pouring down a cold mix of snow and rain. The skies are leaden. The day is dreary. 

BUT our all-winter flock of goldfinches is still around, dotting the lawn with a dozen shades of yellow and ochre. 

American Goldfinch

Red-winged Blackbirds are singing, and we are well into spring migration - the most exciting time of the year! 

As soon as they arrive, the males start scouting out good breeding territories. They'll choose their favorites and then they will begin to announce, loudly and repeatedly, that they're ready and able to defend the area and that they're ready and able to find a mate and start the all-important business of reproducing. 

Females will be here in the next few weeks, and they will carefully check out each offered territory, looking for nesting places, nesting materials, good cover from predators, and the absence of obvious dangers such as wandering cats or dogs.

MARCH

Spring migration starts in early March (or even late February!) and will continue though May. Male Red-winged Blackbirds were the vanguard, followed soon by Common Grackles and then Brown-headed Cowbirds. 

We humans often notice those three species because they come to backyard feeders. Other birds, which don't visit feeders, have already returned also, including three diverse members of the huge shorebird family.

Killdeer are blanketing the state's fields, golf courses, and even flat gravel roofs.   

This Killdeer laid her eggs on a little scrape in the midst of hard pointed rocks!

American Woodcock males have begun gathering on "leks" (special areas cleared for male courtship displays). 

Wilson's Snipes are skulking around on the edges of swamps. Soon the males will be doing their courtship flights over swampy areas, making a somewhat eerie noise with their feathers that's known as "winnowing".

Some much bigger birds also return to Vermont in March. Turkey Vultures are often the first, soaring without flapping on wings held in a slight V - true wind masters!

They are soon joined by a few Black Vultures, birds that apparently rely on their cousins' better sense of smell to locate carrion.

Osprey are already atop most of the man-made nesting platforms in our part of the state. 

Double-crested Cormorants can be seen flying a foot or so above the water or drying their wings on buoys or logs.

Great Blue Herons are busy rebuilding their messy stick nests for another year. 

APRIL

More herons arrive in the north country in April.

American Bitterns have been seen in one of their favorite places: the marshes at the south end of Shelburne Pond.

A Black-crowned Night Heron has returned to the Stephen Young Marsh at Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.

Green Herons and Great Egrets are on their way and should arrive within the next two weeks or so.

Tree Swallows are swooping over swamps, ponds and fields in many locations. They're usually the earliest swallows to arrive back in Vermont.

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are suddenly everywhere, filling woods with complicated exuberant songs that seem much too loud for such tiny creatures.

photo by Peter Swaine

Eastern Phoebes have begun checking out the places where they nested last year: atop porch lights, under barns, on old Christmas wreathes.

Bald Eagles - year-round residents in Vermont - are nesting already.

Eastern Meadowlarks are back - few and far between, with drastically reduced numbers as is the case with grassland birds all over the world. Yesterday (4/15) they were seen and heard in several locations including Lagoon Road in Hinesburg and along Hawkins Road in Ferrisburgh.

Migratory dabbling ducks - Gadwalls, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Pintails - are in flooded fields everywhere, chowing down on vegetation and invertebrates. 

In a few weeks, we'll continue this post with all the excitement that happens in May - when there's a new species just about every day. Vireos return, and wrens. And  the bright colored birds Orioles! Warblers! Indigo Buntings!

by Maeve - with lots of photos by Bernie, a few by Maeve, and one by a friend and fellow birder