March 9th - 11th brought a string of days with really nice weather, so I committed to making a final push to complete my quest.  On the 9th I surveyed the last outlier, Huntington, which is over in the mountains on the west side of the state.  Since it's also the home of the Vermont chapter of Audubon, I made that my survey location.  Done.

On the 10th, Skylar joined me as we trekked north to Brownington and ten to Westmore.  I'd been told that actor Charles Bronson was buried in Brownington, but on the day we visited, the cemetery grounds were covered with knee-deep snow.  Sorry Charles.  It would've been a nice photo for this blog post, but it was not to be.  Instead, we found a nice sunny back road, and hiked it for roughly a half hour.  Nice views of low, rolling hills, no noises but the sounds of our boots on the soft earthen road.   A small white house with a small barn, named the Chick Inn Hotel.  Cute.  Nothing much of note... UNTIL THAT TURKEY CALLED OUT FROM JUST OVER MY SHOULDER!  A huge white tom turkey was the  watchdog for the hotel.  I've encountered many turkeys during my years of birding, but Geez!   I jumped a foot!  Holy cow, I was not expecting that.  

After Brownington, Sky and I had our lunch and made our way towards Westmore, home of the spectacular Lake Willoughby.  Purportedly Vermont's deepest lake, Willoughby is flanked by steep cliff faces on both sides... truly spectacular!  The photographs cannot fully capture the drama of those cliffs.  The lake was frozen thick, and anglers were still driving trucks out to their ice fishing shanties out on the lake.  I must admit, it is somewhat surreal to walk 100-200 feet out onto a frozen lake, to take pictures of the shoreline.  To survey Westmore, we drove to the South Trail parking area, just beyond all of the dramatic vistas.  Sky decided to nap in the sunshine while I hiked up towards Pulpit Rock, some 600 feet above the lakeshore.  The slope was surprisingly steep -- almost 45 degrees in some areas -- but the trail zigged and zagged its way up, making the slope more passable.  Turns out Pulpit Rock was 2 kilometers up the trail, and I was encountering nothing for birds.  So, when I reached a viewpoint at roughly the halfway point, I took some photos, cut my losses, and headed back down to the car.  It's quite eye-opening to lean out on a tree, to get a better view, and then look down to see that the ground just ends in front of your boot, and one step beyond that is a 200-300 foot drop.  Again, my photo just doesn't capture the full depth of view.

243 - 244 - 245... I'm now chasing down the final 12 towns, cities, and gores to complete the State of Vermont.  All but 3 are in the far northern reaches of the state, requiring 2 to 2 1/2 hours of driving just to get to the town.  Of course, getting to the town is only the beginning of the effort; I next have to find a suitable - and safe - place to park my car and conduct my survey.  

Birding in the mountains in wintertime provides the opportunity to see rural Vermont in one of the prettiest of seasons.  The mountain tops all white with snow, the valleys gray-brown from deciduous trees without snow or leaves, and the sinuous gray of the lone highway weaving through the valley and around meanders in the brooks and streams. 

Birding in the mountains in wintertime does not often provide for great birding opportunities, however, mostly due to the short days and diminished food for birds.  These latest towns featured the basic 3 species that I encounter everywhere in the north: Black-capped Chickadees, Common Ravens, and occasionally Blue Jays.  Boreal species are unlikely due to the deciduous nature of the forest.  Owls would be more likely if I were willing to bird after dark, and then wind my way back south towards the highways and the Interstate.  As it is, I try to find locations in each town that will give me the best chance at the best diversity of species at this time of year.  But it is always up to chance.

​My final 9 towns include 5 I have never visited before, and 4 I have visited but could not find a desirable location to hike and bird.  This is my home stretch, and with time running short, beggars can't be choosers, so what I see (or hear) during my survey will have to suffice.

Back onto the quest!  With winter setting in, I wanted to knock off some of the mountainous towns along the spine of the Green Mountains.  Driving up the VT-100 corridor was the perfect way to accomplish this and to make good headway northward; my route took me from Rochester north along the Mad River Valley to Morrisville.  Along the way, I stopped to photograph some of the more notable waterfalls in Vermont.

In GRANVILLE, I hiked up National Forest Route 55 into the White River Headwaters Recreational Area.  Two inches of early winter snow covered the ground.  There were not many birds along this route, but I could see that a very large moose had been walking along the middle of the same road within the last day or two; it's hoof prints were as large as my hand with outstretched fingers.
On my way north from Granville, I stopped to check out Moss Glen Falls, which surprisingly, was right along the side of the highway.  The State of Vermont has built a nice walkway to the base of the falls, as well as a paved parking area and informational plaque.

WARREN holds the headwaters of the Mad River, and one of the first sights one sees upon cresting the knoll is a pull-off for Warren Falls.  Here the Mad slices through a narrow passage through vertical-bedded rock, in a series of 4 steps.  There must be a thunderous roar through this gap when the water is high, but otherwise it looks like a beautiful - if not slightly challenging, swimming hole.  Warren is the location of Lincoln Gap Road, which rises steeply over the spine of the Green Mountains.  The upper 2 miles of the road are closed in winter, but it is possible to hike from the gate up to the Gap.  Turns out, the closed road is also a phenomenal sledding trail, and the recent snow put just enough cover on the paved road to make for a slick sledding route.  For a kilometer, the roadway was covered with the 3-groove tracks of plastic snow sleds.  Folks must've really had a great time that day; too bad nobody was sledding when I was hiking up the road.

FAYSTON is the home of Sugarbush ski resort, and I was fearful I wouldn't find a good place to hike and bird.  Fortunately, I stumbled upon the Chase Brook Town Forest, which suited my needs perfectly.  The Catamount Cross-Country Ski Trail passes through the town forest, making for a nice easy route for me to hike.  I needed an easy route because I needed to get back to my car fairly soon, as storm clouds were crossing over the mountain ridge, and snow was starting to fly.  But my hike was successful and most enjoyable.

The Catamount Cross-Country Ski Trail runs the entire length of the state of Vermont, and roughly parallels the Long Trail. It's only open in the winter, and is intended for skiers only; no snowmachines, no summer hiking.

Photos will be added below the Checklists

GRANVILLE #217 Checklist:
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
Slate-colored Junco

WARREN #218 Checklist:
Black-capped Chickadee
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Common Raven
White-breasted Nuthatch

FAYSTON #219 Checklist:
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Goldfinch

I cannot believe that it's been 4 years since my last posting to this blog.

My quest is 80 percent accomplished, and I have a renewed urge to complete the quest -- before eventually moving out of this state.  But before I could resume my exploration of Vermont's towns, I needed to reconcile which towns I have actually surveyed, and which I have not. 

Today I took on that reconciling.  What a mess I had on my hands.  Some surveys in eBird, others still on my phone; numbers on this website not matching those in my Delorme field atlas.  But my Delorme is the foundation of my surveys; it is always updated when I survey a new town.  So, I went thru all 55 map pages and reconciled the Town Number and Survey Date in a spreadsheet.  I thought I had surveyed 215 towns, but in fact I had missed a 216th that I'd surveyed in 2017.  Sorry about that Newbury!

So, three dozen towns to go.  Fortunately, most of them are in clusters around the northern and central areas of the state.  I was surprised to see that I regularly drive thru two of them - Richmond and Williston -  on my way up to Burlington; I've just never gotten off the Interstate and explored them.

Here we go!

Ah, winter birding in Vermont!  Take away the leaves and the warblers, and there's quite a bit to see. And we're close enough to the Canadian boreal forest that we get some wonderful winter visitors.  Snow Geese start the season off with their fall migration, making a stop-over in the town of Addison, which is dominated by wide open farm fields.  Over the course of the season, one can expect to see Iceland, Glaucous, and Little Gulls, Bohemian Waxwings, Gray Jays and Crossbills, the occasional Boreal Chickadee,  and a nice suite of raptors. Snowy Owls are relatively common and always attention-getters, with 8 ringing in the New Year in Addison.  Last year there was a Great Gray Owl in Hanover NH.  Rough-legged Hawks can frequently be seen around fields and marshes.  And for the only the second time in my birding life, I had the privilege today of viewing a Northern Hawk-Owl.  

As an indication of how rare NHOW's are, when I arrived to view this owl, there was a couple who had driven up from Philadelphia - just to view this bird!  By the time I moved on, several other birders had arrived on the scene.  I found a nice area a mile further along the road, where I could do a more standard woodland survey, and there I encountered the 'usual suspects'.

After leaving Waterbury, I headed over to Lake Champlain to see what raptors and waterfowl could be seen between Shelburne Bay and Crown Point Bridge.  It was a pleasant and successful day, with over 30 bird species observed; my total number of species for Vermont in just 2 weekends is now 45.  The end of the day was highlighted by a spectacular Snowy Owl sitting up in a tree, right along the highway where everyone could safely get off the highway to enjoy.  This owl had been in the same location since New Years Day when I first viewed him.  Owl bookends!

CHECKLIST FOR WATERBURY:

Northern Hawk-owl     Common Raven     American Crow     Black-capped Chickadee     Blue Jay     White-breasted Nuthatch     Downy Woodpecker