How many species can you find in Rutland County in one day? If it’s May, the weather is good and you have teams out scouring a good portion of the county, at least 120!
On May 21 RCAS held annual Century Count XXVII. With the Covid pandemic still with us, we again divided into teams. This allowed us to cover a wide variety of habitats from marsh to forest to lakeshores to fields and power lines.
Each team had highlights and also found species other teams missed. The big find of the day was a yellow-breasted chat at the Buckner Preserve in West Haven.
A flock of 55 pine siskins, a species we associate with winter, were at a feeder in Shrewsbury.
It’s shaping up to be a big cuckoo year – both black-billed and yellow-billed cuckoos were seen at quite a few locations.
With warbler migration winding down, most warbler species were seen with the exception of Cape May warbler and bay-breasted warbler, which may be at the tail end of their migration through our area. The ‘winged’ warblers, golden-winged and blue-winged and their hybrids including the ‘Lawrence’s’ hybrid were seen.
Some of the birding hotspots covered included the Buckner Preserve, Cogman/Ghost Hollow Roads in West Haven, West Rutland Marsh (including the new Whipple Hollow Trail), the Pleasant Street power line, Bomoseen State Park and the lake, Lefferts Pond and Kent Pond among others.
Many thanks to all who participated and submitted all their sightings to eBird!
Link to the eBird trip report, click here.
The List:
| Canada Goose Wood Duck Mallard Hooded Merganser Common Merganser Wild Turkey Ruffed Grouse Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Yellow-billed Cuckoo Black-billed Cuckoo Chimney Swift Ruby-throated Hummingbird Virginia Rail Common Gallinule Killdeer American Woodcock Wilson's Snipe Spotted Sandpiper Ring-billed Gull Common Loon Great Blue Heron Green Heron Turkey Vulture Osprey Bald Eagle Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Barred Owl Belted Kingfisher Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Northern Flicker | Peregrine Falcon Eastern Wood-Pewee Alder Flycatcher Willow Flycatcher Least Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Great Crested Flycatcher Eastern Kingbird Yellow-throated Vireo Blue-headed Vireo Warbling Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue Jay American Crow Common Raven Black-capped Chickadee Tufted Titmouse Northern Rough-winged Swallow Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Red-breasted Nuthatch White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper House Wren Winter Wren Marsh Wren Carolina Wren European Starling Gray Catbird Brown Thrasher Eastern Bluebird Veery Swainson's Thrush Hermit Thrush Wood Thrush American Robin Cedar Waxwing | House Sparrow House Finch Purple Finch Pine Siskin American Goldfinch Chipping Sparrow Field Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Savannah Sparrow Song Sparrow Swamp Sparrow Eastern Towhee Yellow-breasted Chat Bobolink Eastern Meadowlark Orchard Oriole Baltimore Oriole Red-winged Blackbird Brown-headed Cowbird Common Grackle Ovenbird Louisiana Waterthrush Northern Waterthrush Golden-winged Warbler Blue-winged Warbler Black-and-white Warbler Tennessee Warbler Nashville Warbler Mourning Warbler Common Yellowthroat American Redstart Northern Parula Magnolia Warbler Blackburnian Warbler Yellow Warbler Chestnut-sided Warbler Blackpoll Warbler Black-throated Blue Warbler Pine Warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Prairie Warbler Black-throated Green Warbler Canada Warbler Scarlet Tanager Northern Cardinal Rose-breasted Grosbeak Indigo Bunting |