Cornwall Conservation Commission

01/07/2024

First significant snowfall of winter coincides with the 2024 start of the Vermont state legislative session. Two useful sources of conservation-related legislative priorities are: Vermont Conservation Voters at vermontconservationvoters.com and Vermont Natural Resources Council at vnrc.org. They are sponsoring a webinar “Climate Resiliency: What’s Needed and What’s Possible in Vermont” at noon on Monday, January 8th; register from the VNRC web page. Climate related legislation this year are predicted to include: updating Act 250; modernizing Vermont’s renewable energy standard; a Senate over-ride of the gubernatorial Bottle Bill veto and more. Stay in the know!

01/05/2024

No snow so the Conservation Commission is rescheduling the Wildlife Tracking workshop (originally Jan 6th) to Sunday afternoon, January 28th (1-3 pm). If there is not enough snow, it will be inside the Town Hall.

Plans are still in place for the zoom and advanced training for Cornwall folks who would like to assist with wildlife inventory data-collection. January 15th (7-8 pm) is the Winter Track ID zoom presentation, taking what the presenter Sophie Mazowita describes as "a deep dive into wildlife track ID and how to document wildlife tracks and sign." It is followed by a small-group, field experience on Saturday, the 20th (1-3 pm) that will further prepare volunteers to distinguish tracks and signs of the target species the Cornwall Conservation Commission is monitoring this winter.

The winter tracking events are sponsored by the Conservation Commission as a part of a two-year-long wildlife habitat connectivity study. If you are interested in participating in any of these programs, please rsvp at: trackingconnection.com/cornwall.

Hope you will join us!

12/20/2023

Have you seen these beauties at your feeders this fall? House Finch is a usual suspect at feeders in Cornwall. They delight us with their gray and crimson contrast, their raspy whistles, and their seed-cracking beaks. But they are also highly susceptible to conjunctivitis, which often leads to blindness and death in finches. Please clean your feeders regularly to prevent this. Many methods can be found online, but our favorite is to take our feeders apart, hose them down, and run them through the dishwasher by themselves on a disinfect cycle. Doing so every week or two can help keep these birds healthy and returning to our feeders throughout the winter—a win for them and us both.

12/20/2023

It’s snowing geese over a farm field in Addison County.

12/14/2023

Do you know what animal made this track? Feel free to put your best guess in the comments. And mark your calendars for Saturday January 6th, 2024 to attend a workshop on wildlife tracking, to be held in Cornwall (VT). The precise location of the workshop will be announced later, so stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled for other signs of wildlife in your own backyard. This track was spotted in a yard on West Street.

11/22/2023

As the snow flies…
I am excited to see more birds at our feeders. The blue jays now frequent the platform feeder. We hung a second one nearby to attract evening grosbeaks. So far none have shown up, but we noticed that a single blue jay frequents this new feeder. My daughter (9) made a good point that there were a lot of battles among the six or so blue-jays at the original feeder, and it had appeared that one in particular always got kicked out. She wondered whether this was the one who has found refuge on the new feeder.

Also, several female house finches have appeared with one or two males. The males are luminous, with their red heads, chests, and rumps. We wondered what they’d been eating all summer and fall to make them so bright.

We had heard that there might be an irruption of pine siskins coming our way, so when we saw the female house finches, we immediately thought they were pine siskins. I could hardly tell the difference, but it was my son (13) who reminded me to look for a smaller, pointier beak and yellow stripes on the wing tips. No pine siskins yet, but we are watching our thistle feeder with anticipation.

The gold finches have found our thistle feeder, so we’re hoping the pine siskins aren’t far behind.

And this morning, our shy, skulky cardinal emerged, perching on our leafless forsythia bush, gleaming crimson against the brown sticks and white snow.

11/16/2023

Learn where Cornwall’s wild animals roam! Mark your calendar for Thursday Dec 7, 7-8 pm at the Town Hall. Wildlife tracker Sophie Mazowita will teach us how to recognize animal tracks and signs.

11/16/2023

Snow geese at Dead Creek

06/24/2023

July 1 8:30-9:30 pm

Join us for a night of fun and learning about fireflies!

06/15/2023

Fireflies in June
It’s now June, and I’ve been seeing pollinators, in the flowers, gardens and today in the woods! The pollinator garden that I planted in the fall is filled with green: penstemon, swamp milkweed, tiny leaves of Agastache, and monarda – all natives. I have faith that their blooms will coincide with the needs of the native insects who are depending on them for food. Timing is everything!

Fortunately, there are shrubs and flowers elsewhere in other gardens – baptisia, one of my favorites, tall and blue, lavender nepeta, and white Rosa Rugosa, all filled with buzzing bees. We’ve seen hummingbird moths and butterflies on the dwarf lilac yesterday – always a treat!

There’s a new clearing in the woods, created by the removal of many invasive buckthorns, with a sunny space, with dirt, ferns, bloodroot, tiny maples, duff and rocks, of course – where, in Vermont, are there NOT rocks and stones?! Steve, the invasive remover extraordinaire, has planted 10 trees to fill the space: 2 sugar maples, bur oaks and red oaks. Oaks are the keystone tree, according to Doug Tallamy, hosting 500 species, more than any other tree.

As I stood in the woods, and watched, I noticed three different butterflies in the clearing: one was large and dark, maybe a Red-Spotted Purple, another a Great Eastern Swallowtail, and the 3rd was an Eastern Tailed-Blue. I’m still learning the many Vermont butterflies, and it’s a pleasure.

We’ve seen fireflies in the meadow as well – so lovely, as they flash in the dark. They’re endangered, and we can help by turning off outside lights, using motion-detector lights ,and closing shades or curtains at night. Light pollution has increased 100% in the last 10 years, so let’s do what we can to keep our skies dark.

https://getwildcornwall.wixsite.com/getwild/blogs-and-forums/passion-for-pollinators/fireflies-in-june

https://getwildcornwall.wixsite.com/getwild/blogs-and-forums?feedType=all-posts

06/15/2023

Slow Fishing: Inspired by Bridget Butler's "Slow Birding"

Everything that’s happened, all
that’s yet to come
Is here inside this moment, it’s
the only one. -Mason Jennings

For fast acting relief, try slowing down. -Lily Tomlin

I’m both a birder and a fly angler. This poses a time conundrum for folks like me, who have the privilege of time—namely that here in New England, bird-watching and fly-fishing both “turn on” in April, peak in May, and slow down in late summer. It would seem, then, that at any given moment, choosing to do one would require choosing not to do the other. Fortunate as I am to be faced with two equally gratifying options, it’s never an easy choice. So, when my son asked me to compete in the Otter Creek Classic fly-fishing tournament, I was happy to let him choose for me that weekend.

Steve Atocha of Middlebury Mountaineer started the OCC with fly-angler and friend Jesse Haller fifteen years ago to raise money for community outreach and conservation. Though participants—who range in skill level from junior to amateur to pro—enjoy an ethos of friendly competition and camaraderie, the early spring timing makes this a HARD tournament. Early season snowmelt combined with fast, deep, frigid water means most of us won’t catch fish.

Which is the predicament I was in by 9:50 am on Sunday morning, April 16th. It was the final day of the tournament, two-hours from closing time. Temps flirted with 85-90 thanks to a freak April heat wave that made the air too hot for waders but the water too cold for wet-wading. By then we’d been standing in the water in a rubber-suit, casting desperately to sluggish fish for 15-hours, with breaks only for snacks and sleep. Despite our best tactical efforts, neither my son nor I had caught so much as a minnow. I’d just snagged bottom on a log, lost my dozenth fly of the morning, and decided to call it.

I slumped down on a rock, my rod on my lap, and looked ten yards upstream to where my twelve-year-old bravely stood thigh-deep in the strong current--unfaltering. The sun shone down on the water, making it glisten—as if the water all around him somehow reflected the starry version of a daytime sky. He wasn’t done, or at least, not as done as I was.

I didn’t want to pull him away.

I lay my rod down, sat on my rock, watched my son, the birds, the river. A phoebe belted his burry song from somewhere nearby—free-BEE, free-BEE, free-BEE. I spotted him flitting from under the bridge to the opposite bank, to a high maple bow, back to the bridge. He made his brief, quadratic journey several times in the exact same way.

I wondered, was he the lookout who protected his mate while she built the nest that would house their hatchlings? Had he been there this whole time, keeping any eye on me? How had I failed to hear his persistent song?

My answer to the last question was easy. The phoebe’s song eluded me because I had been fishing the opposite way that I watch birds: I had been hunting. Chasing trout to win a spot on the OCC15 leaderboard, which was not at all in line with the spirit of the event. The moment I decided to “give up,” collapsing in a hot, spent heap on the rock behind me, is the moment I was free to hear the phoebe’s song.

I watched the busy phoebe for a long time from my rock, all but forgetting my quest for trout. In those moments, my world became—not smaller, per se—but simpler: The phoebe singing to my east, the river rushing by in front of me, the warmth radiating from the rock wall behind me, my son casting his line over the glittering current to my west. I watched until my heart rate slowed, until I felt I had enough space from the chase that I could conceive of re-rigging my rod and casting once again. But this time, with no expectation. Just for practice. Just for fun.

As a beginner angler, I often find myself painfully overwhelmed by fly-selection. But this time I felt myself as if standing in a place that time forgot. It is from within this place that I managed to effortlessly rerig my rod with precisely the tippet and fly combination designed for these rough, early-spring conditions. (5x fluorocarbon and a red squirmy worm above a batman prince nymph—in case you were wondering.)

Did it work? Well, yes—in the sense that what I “got” was a reminder of why I fish, or watch birds, or do anything, really.

Mason Jennings might have said it best when he sang, “Be here now, no other place to be.” I don’t do these things for the catch or the capture, but for that feeling—all too rare these days—of time standing still.

For More Birding Fun:

See below for species added to our family's 2023 backyard life list.

To learn to bird by ear (how I bird while fishing!), download the larkwire app. I bought the Eastern landbird song pack and it was well worth the fee. https://www.larkwire.com/.

06/15/2023

Birds Coming Home
After being absent for many months, that first glimpse is electric, captivating, and full of warmth and hope.

~Bridget Butler, aka The Bird Diva, from “Saunter, Gaze, Linger”

https://www.birddiva.com/slow-birding-blog



Last winter my family and I saw Joe Zimmerman’s live stand-up routine at the Flynn, and perhaps the funniest part for me was his rib on birders.

“Recently, I met a professional birder. He gives birding tours. He’s ninety years old—he turned so old he went pro!” And the ribbing goes on for three more minutes.

I try to stay curious about why I do the things I do—things like birding—and to never take myself so seriously that I can’t have a good laugh at myself every now and then. But on recent bird walks, as I practiced naming each bird I heard, I found myself reflecting on this bit of comedy more seriously.

I’m a forty-six-year-old married woman and mother of two children. While I’m certainly not “old” (though I am to my kids—it’s all relative, isn’t it?), I did not actively watch birds until well into my forties. These days, however, I find myself not just watching, but also studying, listening for, hoping for, birds.

In April the tall pine stands behind our flooded meadow carry the high-pitched fairy tinkles of Golden-Crowned Kinglets—tseet tseet tseet—and the operatic warbles of the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet—tseet tseet tseet tseet, chirp chirp chirp, warble warble warble. As I continue into the mixed deciduous part of our forest, I stop every so often to quiet the crinkle of dry leaves beneath my boots. That’s when the irregular staccato rhythms of a drumming Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker reach my ears. After searching unsuccessfully with my eyes for the sap-eating woodpecker, I commence my leaf-rustling walk only to alarm a pair of Hermit Thrushes, who screech loudly and eerily to each other—one from in front of me, and one from behind. “Yes!” I whisper and smile, grateful for the firsts sounds—however cacophonous—of friends I haven’t seen or heard since fall.

By now I’ve emerged from the woods onto our shrub-lined gravel driveway, maybe a quarter-mile from where the Hermit Thrushes warned each other about my presence. All this stopping, listening, watching means I don’t get very far on my daily bird walks. Still, the subtle shift in ecosystem carries news sounds onto the landscape. “Drink your tea!” calls the Eastern Towhee—a handsome male—from within the dense branches of a shrub, a chokeberry perhaps, before landing in the leaf litter to forage. I hear his rhythmic shuffle as I walk towards my neighbor’s yard, which is full of tall grasses around which he mows narrow curvy pathways for walking. Once again, I hear the song of a bird who’s returned safely to his summer home. The Field Sparrow sings sweetly to the rhythm of a ping-pong ball, his song growing ever faster until it quiets to an almost breathless trill.

The way I’d name what I feel while birding in April is relief. While I have grown familiar with all of the aforementioned birds over the past few years, there’s always that chance—that fear lingering in the back of my mind—that some of them might not make the journey back here or might not choose to return. Have we been good stewards of our small patch of forest? When will climate change and fragmentation of wilderness habitat quiet the music on our landscape, depriving us of the company of so many birds for whom we give gratitude each spring even as we take them for granted?

For me, these questions bring to mind both John Zimmerman’s joke about birding as a pastime for the “old”, and the feelings of warmth and hope that Bridget Butler describes on greeting our spring birds anew each year. In this context, I’m more inclined to agree with Zimmerman’s idea, however agist, that birding might be a sign of getting older. This makes sense when you realize that all the years tend to add up to wisdom, perspective, prioritization. Today, the return of birds to their summer home fills me with solace and hope. Could damage-control, or even reversal, really be possible? My bird walks tell me it can, but I don’t think I would have said so ten or fifteen years ago, in my pre-birding youth.

Migrant Birds to Learn About in April:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org

§ Golden-Crowned Kinglet (seen and heard 4/5/23)

§ Chipping Sparrow (seen and heard 4/7/23)

§ Eastern Phoebe (seen and heard 4/9/23)

§ Brown-Headed Cowbird (seen and heard 4/12/23)

§ Eastern Towhee (seen and heard 4/16/23)

§ Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (seen and heard 4/18/23)

§ Brown Thrasher (heard 4/18/23)

§ Field Sparrow (heard 4/18/23)

§ Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (heard 4/18/23)

§ Hermit Thrush (heard 4/18/23)

Joe Zimmerman's Birder-Ribbing Routine:
https://youtu.be/Ra-aZPpNHLE

FINALLY, some bird comedy. UPDATE -- I've started keeping track of my bird sightings on eBird. As of this writing I'm at 95 birds, NOT BAD. Central Park tur...