Intervale - April 14th

Today I went a little further north down the Winooski at the Intervale. When I checked the weather, it said it was 48 degrees, but it felt much colder than that. I was going to go back to the same spot that I went last week but when I went closer to the river the path was flooded out. So, I rode my bike down a different path and found a nice spot by the river. There was heavy cloud cover but not much breeze. The habitat is all deciduous trees bordered by open field farmland and the Winooski River. I was surprised that there were so fewer birds singing even though it had been a week. I was expecting to hear warning calls from some birds when I settled in but the woods were quiet. At 4:50 the first bird I heard was a gull. I feel like I have been seeing an increase in gulls the past few weeks which seems interesting because I am pretty sure that herring gulls are present all year round in VT. Maybe more gulls are coming north in combination with those that stick around all year. I then saw some more gulls circling in the far-field. I heard a couple of other small birds calling as then flew by the edge of the forest, but I couldn’t make out what they were. At 5:07 three mallards flew in and landed in the river and floated downriver. They were the first of a couple of mallards I saw on the river. At 5:16 I saw a turkey vulture gliding overhead. I then heard a mourning dove around 5:25 it was across the river. I was also keeping my ears open for the sound of a woodpecker, sure enough, I heard one tapping a few trees down from where I was seated. I looked around to see if I could see or hear another but I couldn’t. The female jumped around a bit then flew to the other side of the river. Again around 5:30 I saw more raptors, likely turkey vultures gliding through the air. I saw a mallard fly by going south down the Winooski. The mourning down continued to sing. It started to get a bit colder. I still did not hear any birds that I could recognize. I think I saw a cormorant fly overhead. I heard a Canada goose fly overhead as the sun was getting lower. Around 6:00 when I started to make my way out of the forest I noticed the further I went from the river the greater number of cardinals, blue jay, chickadees, and robin I noticed.

Posted on April 16, 2020 03:48 AM by sgillies