If anyone would like to talk birds, birding, photography or even go birding. I can be reached at MADDOG54L at 
Don't get my wrong the birding was great too. The marsh and surrounding area was alive with spring time activities, there were birds on territory, others singing while still others built nests. Bee's were busy gathering pollen from the flowering tree which filled the air with their sweet scent.
I thought that it must have just emerged because it did not show any of the ware that comes with age. It wasn’t till I got home and put the images on the computer that I realized what I actually had found was a Silvery Blue Butterfly, one of the first blue butterflies of spring. Ahhh the learning curve, what a great part of the Journey !
The dam at BellowsFalls got stuck open and the water level was very low at Herricks cove, I got stuck on the sandbars about 20 times, but the good thing was a half dozen Greater Yellowlegs working the mud flats and I got some nice images of them.
I went up the Williams River then turned in to the Cattail swamp/marsh hoping to find Marsh Wrens or some other marsh inhabitants. It wasn't long before the Marsh Wrens let me know that I was in their territory. The beautiful Song of the Marsh Wren when heard for the first time would make you think that there is a much larger bird hiding in the cattails, it isn't until the wren has had enough of your nosing around that they come out to give you a piece of their mind and what a surprise. Before you is a tinny little Marsh Wren with it's tail straight up in the air, usually straddling two cattails and letting you know who's boss. I saw two and heard 3 more. I also heard what sounded to me like a Virginia Rail but I'm not good at birding by ear. On the way out of the marsh I went along the shore line checking for Warblers, there were Yellow-rump Warblers everywhere, scanning the bushes I found two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.
I got very lucky and pressed to button just as the Gnatcatcher took off and the header image is the result. I also saw a Muskrat but it was gone by the time I got my camera up. It's always a great Journey when your are in a marsh like Herricks Cove.
Lots of kid activities ranging from building your own Bat house to what looked like the most popular with the kids, a large wooden box full of mud and sand to play to your hearts content. There was Music, Food and plenty exhibits to keep you busy, 
the Nature Museum from Grafton showed up with the last Vermont Catamount, there were snakes ,turtles, lizards, frogs and Butterflies to look at. Vins presented a Live Reptor talk with a Red-tailed hawk, Barred Owl and a Kestrel. The forever locked Moose display was crowded all day. At the end of the day Tom Ricardi of the Massachusetts Birds of Prey rehab facility put on a educational program that featured a Saw-whet Owl the size of your hand, Bald Eagle and other reptors. Tom was walking through the crowded tent giving everyone close up looks at the birds, the kids eyes were as big as silver dollars, they were loving it and Tom did too!
If you ever get a chance to see Tom's presentation be sure to check it out you'll be glad you did, Very special he is. After packing up we made one last pass around Herricks Cove and Phillip Ballou located a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a nice way to end the day. Our bird report for the day. 
It as a fun day.
Pete
We are off to the Herricks Cove Wildlife festival today and the rain is going to stop Thank You! Carol and I have been busy all week printing images and framing them, making greeting cards thinking that the sun is going to shine. So if your tired of being stuck in the house come over to Herricks Cove and stop by and say hello, we would to meet you.
Directions from I 91 :
At Herricks Cove on Sunday we saw an Osprey hunting over the mud flats, and as luck would have it, it flew directly overhead. Ospreys, Eagles and spring migrants are just some of the birds that make Birding at Herricks Cove a great adventure.
After firing off a burst of images ( 7 fps ), I turned to Harry and asked, "did you get that?" In a mono tone voice Harry says, I think so. I'm like all pumped up and Mister Excitement says, I think so. Harry is new to photography and birding so I guess the excitement will come. Drum roll please, Harry's first blog image , a belted Kingfisher to boot.
Anyone who has tried to photograph a Kingfisher knows how hard it is. The Kingfisher is one of the smarts birds in all of north America, I know you think what's he talking about? Well have you ever noticed when you get out of your car a quarter mile away and start creeping up on a Kingfisher and just as your start to get in range of your bino or camera, the birds gone. They know that you only have a 300 mm lens, so they move just as you start to get close , and if that's not bad enough they laugh as they fly a 100 ft down the road and land, only to start the game all over again. I'm telling you they're smart. Harry's photo wasn't just beginners luck either, it was experienced driving that positioned the mobile-blind in just the right place so he could get the image. I'm really not a bad driver as some ( Carol ) would have you think.
Anyhow, there were Palm Warblers foraging on the ground and a few Yellow-rumped Warblers and some Greater Yellowlegs out in the mud flats. There were reports of other Warblers and a Green Heron too.
To get things started, early Sunday morning at 7:30 Don Clark will be leading a Bird Walk of Herricks Cove, if you have never birded Herricks cove now is your chance to get a guided tour of this Audubon designated IBA.
Meet near the boat ramp parking lot, this bird walk is open to all ages and levels of Birding experience. We have been doing the bird walks with Don for 5 years now and every year we get a little better at birding. It's great fun to bird with a group, everyone is very helpful, sharing scope views and showing you where to look for the birds and what type of bird it is. At 10 am the festival opens with all kinds of exhibits, programs and activities for all ages, there is food, music and a live Raptor presentation featuring Bald Eagles. As always there is something for everyone. Carol , Montana and I will be there with some of our bird photos and maybe a little of our jewelry as well.
For more information visit www.audubon.org/chapter/vt/ascutney
Spent the day looking for Warblers on the Connecticut River in VT and NH with my friend Harry, who's learning about birding and photography at the same time. I have to say that he's become quite the trooper, concidering how I drive when I'm birding and taking pictures.
Bald Eagles were sitting in a tree in the middle of the Connecticut river to far off to photograph, in fact the light yesterday was to contrasty to get good photos of much of anything. I got photos of most of the birds that we saw but most were trash. Having a flash would have flattened out the harsh light and filled in nicely but that's a technique that I haven't learned yet and it just adds more weight to an already heavy camera set-up, which gets old pretty quick on a long day walking around looking for warblers. 
This juvenile Bald Eagle was flying more like an Osprey hunting for food than an Eagle, it would stop , flutter it's wings hovering (see header image) and then fly a short distance and do it all over again.
that didn't want their picture taken, you would line one up in the viewfinder press the shutter button and look to see what you got and it would be all sky, no bird. 
They dart around chasing bugs turning left or right in a second, so when I got home and found these images I was pretty happy.
Here are a few images of the Broad-wing hawk we found yesterday on a wire along side of Rt 103 in Rockingham,Vermont.
The last image was included only because it shows some of the Broad-winged hawk's ID features , the single white Band on tail helps to distinguish the Broad-wing from Red shoulder hawk which has two white bands and the dark outline on the wing is also good but not totally reliable. I'm not that good at ID-ing hawks, I think this one is a adult based on the gray on the head and the finer color and breast feather pattern , a juveniles head is browner and the breast feathers are darker and much more white on the breast. But I could be wrong, so please let me know if I am!
Thanks for visiting.
I turned around slowly to drink in the sites and sounds of spring, peepers calling, wood frogs croaking, birds songs filled the air and then I found the first Fiddlehead of the season.
Spring has sprung!
I have some that are acceptable to me and that's a whole subject all by it's self, one mans Ford is the others BMW. The many bright colors of the wood duck all have different tone values depending on the light, shadows, cloudy or sunny day and then there is the red eye. All this contributes to make this duck one of the most beautiful, popular and tough to get a good image of. In the never ending quest to get a good photograph of the Wood ducks I keep trying , which is for me what makes photography fun, after all if you could take all the best photos right away what would you do after that? The word Boring comes to mind. Every time Carol and I go out photographing it has more to do with being outside and the photography is just something that happens along the way. One never knows what's ahead just around the corner of life, but if your out there enough something is bound to happen. Just going birding and opening your eyes to all the possibilities sets the stage for a adventure of the mind and spirit to drink from the cup of life. I say all this because I was birding the other day and there wasn't much going on, I decided to go home. As I pulled out on to the main road I saw two Woodies in a small pond beside the road and clicked off a few images before they became aware me and left. Just before leaving the male did this little dance for me and made my day!
This male Tree Swallow kept trying , he chased this female around the Allan Bros Marsh attempting to mate. As the images show female landed on a snag and the male would try to mount her, but she was having nothing to do with him.
This went on for the entire time time I was there.
On a different note yesterday, Carol and I had our 5oooth visitor here at It's About the Journey and we want to Thank You to our readers. Some of the things that have happened in the 2 month 8 days we have been around ,Blog Facts:
Carol, Stella (dog) and I went for a ride after work on Saturday, the West Rutland Marsh Walk conducted by the Rutland Audubon had turned up many FOY(first of year) Birds . Click here to see Roy Pilcher of the Rutland Audubons report By the time we arrived it was to hot and most of the birds were resting out of site and not singing. It was a beautiful day to be outside enjoying the sites and sounds and FOY smell, fresh cut grass, We didn't find many FOY birds just the common stuff, Northern Flickers, Redwings,Downy's, Robins etc.
In the heard but not seen category we did hear a American Bittern calling which is always fun to hear. A Chickadee was being very cooperative with Carol talking to it, it stayed perched long enough for me to get an amazing image while the two of them conversed. Really, Carol has her very own special way of Pishing that really works. It is based on a sound that is much gentler to the birds instead of the distress type call.
I have a hearing loss and am always saying to her, did you hear that bird or what's that and her response is always "that was me" and most important is that it effects the birds in the same way as me. Kind of like the doe in headlights effect. 
Riding around the back roads last night I found a displaying Ruffed Grouse on the edge of the road. I got five images before it was run off by an on coming truck. Also found a Wilson's Snipe which I will post photos later.
After dinner Montana and I went to see if we could relocate last years Wilson Snipe in Plymouth. I had checked two days before and no snipe so last night I didn't even want to go but Montana said come on dad, lets go see what we can find. As we drove up to the spot where we found the snipe last year, all of a sudden I could see it, a Wilson's Snipe and in the same place. We looked for the mate but no luck with that, but it's there. The sun was setting providing beautiful soft light for photography, which in bird photography is not always possible.
Learning to create good images in all types of light and weather conditions is the price of admission to good photography, so when you have nice early evening light like this it is a bonus or reward for all those times you worked photographing birds in less then ideal conditions.
For me it is days like this that make the Journey so interesting and makes birding so much fun, I mean a Wilson's Snipe , American Kestrel and a displaying Ruffed Grouse all in a half an hour. Whooooooo weeeeeeee and to think that I wanted to stay home. A special thanks to my son Montana for dragging my sorry butt out of the house or non of this would have happened in the first place and by the way Montana took the photo in the header. The apple and the tree thing?
I was watching a pair of Northern Flickers performing courtship maneuvers through the woods out over the water, back in the woods then zoom up high in the air and on an on it went. That’s when I noticed another birder coming; it was Don Clark, which for me was as good a find as the Palm Warblers we would find later on.
Don is one of those gentle old soles ( he’s really not that old) that has over his life time acquired a wealth of birding knowledge and skills, so it was my great pleasure to bird Herricks Cove with him for a few hours. He freely gives his time and knowledge to others so that they may have an enjoyable time birding too. You to can enjoy birding with Don Clark. On May 4th at 7:30am Don will be leading a free Bird Walk before the 9th Annual Herricks Cove Wildlife Festival. Here are some photos of the Palm Warbler preening/posing for the camera.
Bring on the Warblers, It’s Spring! 
I looked out the window just in ti,e to see a new bird on the feeder. grabbed the camera and five images later it was gone. Carol and I sat down with Sibley's and started to ID the bird, after looking over the possibilities we deceided that it was a Field Sparrow.
If we are wrong on this ID please let me know so I can correct it.
Thanks for looking!
Yesterday, in a week of seemingly never ending pain and frustration we took a few minutes to go see what was at the Marsh. Thank goodness for birds, they really do know how to do just the right dance to take your mind off things for a bit.
We had a Phoebe great us at the entrance and a pair of Hooded Mergansers swim off to our right.
The sweetest Killdeer danced in the road for us, and didn’t seem to mind at all that we were taking its picture. We went up found some Wood Ducks off in the distance and a few more Mergansers who flew and made the nicest image, well Pete made the image, the birds were the reason for it. A Cormorant was on a high spot, some Geese paired off in the distance, spring has taken hold of the marsh. I spotted a Red-Tail Hawk way up, almost too high to ID, but he was just there to show me the Eagle off to his right I would have otherwise missed altogether. It’s always nice to see Eagles soaring, somehow I just always feel blessed.
On the way out we followed a pair of Wood Ducks swimming the outside boundaries of the marsh, it was really amazing to watch.
He took the outside and she wove in and out of the branches blending in so well that even with the camera trained on her I had to really look to spot her. In the image bellow you can barely see the male wood duck but can you find the female.
It always amazes me how nature can create the most spectacular of colors on a bird like that yet his mate disappears without a trace into the background. Nature is truly amazing and I can’t thank her enough for showing me some much-needed magic.
Today Carol and I Birded Allan Bros Marsh, the flooding that occurred over the weekend has gone down and the road is once again open. This image of the Killdeer happened very quickly as we drove down the road the Killdeer landed 6ft. from the car door, I picked up the camera and clicked one shot and the Killdeer was gone. Sometimes you get lucky! The header image is just a close crop of the original image.
I worked in the shop Sunday and kept an eye on the lake for anything unusual . As you would expect no customers and no birds , until about 3:oc in the afternoon when I noticed something different. I went outside to get a better look and what a suprise, Pied-billed Grebes.
First one then two more and they were joined by two pair of Hooded Mergansers all in the shallow cove by the shop, what luck!
Warm temperatures and rain are causing lowland flooding all over the northeast, here on lake Pauline it came up about 18 to 20 inches yesterday. Whenever I would go outside I could hear the sound of Buttermilk Fall roaring and it's a half mile away as the crow flies. Having to stay close to home yesterday because my honey didn't feel well I could only imagine what the falls looked like. Later now I finely got my chance, I had to go get a prescription in town and on the way home I could stop for a few minate to look at the falls and take some photos.
Melting snow off the back side of Okemo mountain was filling the Branch Brook and the annual spring runoff made Buttermilk Fall a raging truant of water which I have tried to photograph over the years and capture the essence in a way that you could imagine what it sounded like just looking at the images. I have loaded the images on my Pacsas account as a slideshow so you can see the image full screen , heres the link:
Further up the road we found and Osprey and got some nice images at fairly close range, with the wind coming off the lake at our backs gave us a photographic advantage, the Osprey would fly in to the wind facing us. 
I think having Harry along as a birding bud brought us some beginners luck every now and then!
One of the stranger things we saw on this trip was a Eastern Bluebird flying in and out of a Paper Wasp nest. The question is what was it doing inside there, getting food, building a nest inside or gathering some nest materials ? I hope to go back and find that wasp hive to see what has happened with the Bluebird.
With the sun getting lower in the sky it was time to head home, one last stop for a picture of a Great Blue Heron that would bring this Journey to and end.
I have asked Harry to post some of his photos and write a little story from his point of view. That is next , then the Red-tails. 
I had a chance to check out Allan brothers marsh this morning, birds were singing and it was very peaceful. I saw a Pied-billed Grebe way out on the southern side. Canada geese ,Hooded Mergansers and Mallards were also present.
Getting there early I was able to photograph a Song Sparrow singing, along with a Redwing Black Bird. 
There was a pair of Belted Kingfishers chattering to each other, perching, diving for fish and squaking as only a Belted Kingfisher can do.
What a nice start to the day and it wasn't even 9'oc yet.
Carol and I have been going over to the western side of Vermont, driving from Fair haven north to Addision looking for Hawks and other birds. We have roamed the back roads of this area, it is unlike any other part of Vermont, stark rural beauty everywhere you look. The glaciers carved out wide flat valley's watch are dotted with dairy farms that grow corn and hay. It is these hay fields and the wooded groves between the farms that have made this area a great place to go looking for Hawks. On a good day you could see Red-tailed Hawks, Rough-legged Hawks, Northern Harriers and American Kestrels and that's just for starters. We had seen both Golden and Bald Eagles, Broad-winged Hawks and much more migrating through the Champlain Valley. In Vermont this valley is often referred to as The Valley of Milk and Honey, it runs south from Addision VT all the way to Fort Edwards NY with only a few small breaks.
On this trip up Rt 22a I had my friend Harry along, he's just starting to bird and trying to photograph them as well, it's fun to watch his excitement. By the end of the day we had seen dozens of hawks and did our best to photograph them in the harsh mid-day light.
We were driving along at fifty mph when we spotted a hawk in an old Elm tree, as we drove past Harry asked "what kind of hawk was that?" and I have to admit that at first I had no idea what kind of hawk it was and said so. We were a quarter mile away before we could turn around and head back to see if the hawk was still there. Just as we were pulling off the road by the tree a tractor trailer rig went by and spooked the hawk, once out in to the open I could see that it was a Dark morph Rough-legged Hawk, a nice start to our Rt22a hawk adventure! 
As the day warmed up we could see hawks soaring on most ridge lines and with the wind coming out of the southwest we were able to gain good photographic positions a couple of times, which on Rt 22a is very difficult. You have to be safely out of the way(off the road) because this road is only two lanes wide with plenty of traffic. If you go keep this in mind and pull off the road to keep yourself and others safe. The hawk activity is weather dependent, hawks like to ride the warm rising thermal air currents so choose your day well.
