Debbie Benjamin, President of the Vermont Botanical and Bird Club and Staff Naturalist for the Hazen's Notch Association , presented a program titled “A Celebration of Winter Birds” at the Montgomery Town Library in Montgomery Center on Saturday, February 2, 2008.

A lifelong birding enthusiast, Debbie learned birds early in seventh and eight grades with the encouragement of a very special biology teacher and in the company of her older brother who took her on trips to great birding spots in eastern Massachusetts. Her presentation was the 2nd in a series of 3 programs offered by the Hazen's Notch Association as part of their Winter Speaker Series.

Through slides, audio tracts and discussion Debbie presented some of the more common birds that come to bird feeders in the winter and explained how they survive winter's challenges of shorter days, deep snows and very cold temperatures. She began with Black-capped Chickadee with its array of vocalizations and body language that identifies and reinforces the status of each bird in a flock.

The flock is an important survival tool for finding good feeding resources and for looking out for predators in winter. Debbie related that both the White-breasted Nuthatch and the Red-breasted Nuthatch have an enlarged hind toe called the hallux which allows both species to move easily up and down the trunks of trees which hold a great deal of food in the form of over-wintering insect eggs and larvae.

Debbie next showed the audience two species of birds that have expanded their ranges northward over the last several decades - Northern Cardinal and Tufted Titmouse. The higher the quality of wild fruit in the diet of the Northern Cardinal during molt in the fall results in brighter red plumage colors in both the male (all over) and the female (under the wings). Brighter adults raise more and stronger young during the next breeding season.

The Tufted Titmouse often associates with Black-capped Chickadee-mixed species flocks. These two species benefit from the increase in bird feeding stations and are very capable of finding wild food sources as well.

Debbie also discussed some birds which are common but that do not need to come to bird feeders. These are birds which can find plenty of natural food resources and maintain a constant territory throughout the year. They include Wild Turkey, Ruffed Grouse and Pileated Woodpecker (which occasionally will come to suet feeders).

Wild Turkeys hop/fly up into the lower lateral branches of trees and then walk their way up to roosting positions out of the snow and protected from cold winds. Ruffed Grouse eat a large quantity of buds in two short feeding times each day - 15 minutes near dawn and 15 minutes near dusk - and then spend much of their time conserving energy by resting and digesting. The Pileated Woodpecker excavates large roosting cavities that often have more than one entrance and exit.

This winter many people have seen an irruption of birds from the boreal and tundra regions of Canada into the northern United States due to a reduced seed and fruit crop of many trees including mountain ash, birch, alder and spruce. Birders are reporting sightings of small, medium and large flocks of Bohemian Waxwing, Common Redpoll and Pine Grosbeak throughout Vermont. We learned that the Common Redpoll, which is smaller than a chickadee, can withstand temperatures down to minus 54 degrees C (or minus 62 degrees F) by spending as little time as possible intensely foraging each day, storing extra seeds in its diverticula (expanded lateral pockets in the esophagus) to regurgitate and eat overnight, and fluffing up its relatively thick plumage.

Vermont's Northeast Kingdom is home to some northern bird species year-round in the conifer bogs and boreal forests of Island Pond, Victory, Ferdinand, Averill and Canaan. We looked at four species - Spruce Grouse, Black-backed Woodpecker, Gray Jay and Boreal Chickadee.

Spruce Grouse eats a prodigious amount of pine and spruce needles and digests them slowly in its seasonally enlarged digestive system during winter. Gray Jay produces copious saliva that it uses to stick an abundance of food pieces to tree branches in order to have a steady daily supply during periods of severe weather. Boreal Chickadee also caches food during winter and places it under bark and lichen on the sides of branches and trunks so that it will not become buried in deep snow cover. Each of the four species of the Northeast Kingdom has a counterpart species that is more widespread and that we had reviewed earlier - Ruffed Grouse, Hairy Woodpecker, Blue Jay and Black-capped Chickadee.

Debbie concluded her presentation by showing slides and playing recordings of owls. The audience enjoyed a dramatic picture of the Great Horned Owl with wings spread wide open and talons ready to grasp its prey, such as a snowshoe hare. Often in the same woods as the Great Horned Owl is the smaller Eastern Screech-Owl with a haunting whinnying call. This bird had a juvenile blue jay in its talons.

The most widespread owl is the Barred Owl. The audience listened to the hoots of males and females and to the caterwauling calls of a pair in courtship. Often found in conifer and mixed woodlands, the Northern Saw-whet Owl, Vermont's smallest owl, gives a faint, monotonous toot that some have described as sounding like the sharpening of a mill blade with a whetstone.

Debbie showed a life-sized image of this owl with a height of 7", a wingspan of 17" and a total weight of 80 grams. The final slides were of three owls that may travel south to northern Vermont, New York and other New England states from Canada during winters of scarce prey - Northern Hawk Owl, Snowy Owl and Great Gray Owl.

Debbie expressed her gratitude to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology Department of Visual Services Slide Collection for the images which she presented to the audience. The audience expressed their appreciation for Debbie's presentation and stayed to look at the interesting display of photos, books and birdseed.

- Vermont Outside Staff

Montgomery Town Hall
86 Route 118 - Main Street
Montgomery Center

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Info: 802.326.4799  info@hazensnotch.org