Good Birding!
We watched for about half hour as the swallows gathered nest building materials. The Cliff Swallows just pickup mud in their beaks and flew off with it. ( image bellow Cliff Swallow with beak full of mud)
The Barn Swallows however carried hay to the muddy tire tracks in the barn yard most of which had water in them after the rain, where they would wet the hay . ( tree swallow wetting piece of hay for nest. I think they do this to make the hay/grass soft to work with)
Then they would then added mud to the mixed load of nesting materials and fly off. This scene was repeated over and over again with some copulations throne in for good measure every now and then.
Ahhhh spring!
and a Canadian Swallowtail plus two West Virginia Whites. There was one that would not hold still long enough to ID. I thought it could have been a Juvenal's Duskywing. We'll see what I find when to go back tomorrow to spend more time looking around. There was also many dragonflies and damselflies moving in the warm afternoon air.
My computer chimed meaning that a new email had arrived , I didn't check it till about noon and was surprised by what I found, "A call from a friend via a cell phone alerted me to a great egret here in Brandon. Located by the Dean Farm bridge on Union St. Sue Wetmore ". At the same time the phone rang, it was Bill Jalbert. I ask him if he knew where the Dean Farm was in Brandon? Why, because Sue Wetmore reported a Great egret in Brandon. You wanted to go looking for it? Half hour latter I was in Rutland meeting Bill and his son, Bill checked Google maps for the location and we were off. The cloud front was breaking up the sunshine and blue made it a perfect day for a Birding Adventure. As usual with birding adventures when we got there the bird was nowhere to be found. Asking a couple of fishing guy's if they had seen a large white bird that looks like a blue heron only produced more frustration, "ye it was over there about 20 minutes ago" pointing to the field behind them.Bill headed west of the bridge and I went east to double check the wet areas again. I got it was all I heard and then the sound of Bill running to get his camera, I join him running. Here are some image I took.
Bill and his son had to leave, I stayed and kept birding the area. here is a list for today:
Kestrel 2 
Morning Dove 7 
Turkey Vulture lit by warm afternoon sunlight. We didn't stick around to try and locate the roost, instead raced ahead to try and find a good location for the sunset. (see header) while there watching the TV's 3 Ravens chased a Redtail hawk out of their territory. 
Once the Redtail was safely out of their territory the Ravens broke off the chase. ( note the full crop on this red-tail, white lump at base of neck full of its last meal)
Anyone know what this plant is? It was growing in light shade , rich woodland soil and about 6"tall with pink and blue flowers coming from same stem.
Here is the list of birds and mammals for the day:
Rough-leg Hawk 1 dark morph
Redtailed Hawk 5 one juv RT
Ospry 12 scattered all over the dead Creek area ,watched pr south of
Chimney point bridge nest building and copulating
Northern Harrier 1 male(Gray Ghost )
Tree Swallows
and at Ft Cassin had a young muskrat come right up to me crying as if look for its parents .
Good Birding
We found 14 eagles spread all around the area. The most interesting part was finding 5 juveniles and one adult on the ice south of the river outlet fighting over a fish. One juvenile managed to hold off the others with lots of wing flapping displays.
But after about ten minutes of defending its fish the larger adult (female probable) moved in and took the prize uncontested.
It was also a good day for hawks, here is the only image I got of the light morph Rough-legged Hawk that I found in a field south of Richville rd and rt 22a Shoreham VT. I think that it is a adult male but would love some input from others about this beautiful Rough-legged Hawk. 
here is what we found yesterday from ft Cassin Vergennes down Rt 22a to Rt 4 Fair Haven Vermont.
and yesterday with Bill Jalbert. Here is the image of the Eastern Red-tailed Hawk with the eastern Canada type feature - dark throat instead of a white patch or striped.
Note the dark throat which is typical of northern Canada RT's - see page 56 , plate RT02 of Hawks from Every Angle by Jerry Liguori for a brief description. BTW a very helpful book to have. Compare with Sibley's Redtail images.
I got zip for Bluebird photos even though we were standing 2 feet apart. Bluebirds seem to be somewhat of a problem for me; can you say nemesis! At Ft Cassin the group located 6 Bald Eagles, 3 adults and 3 juveniles. Two were bathing in the frigid water on the shore, a scope's view away. Eventually one flew in our direction and landed nearby where we were able to get some nice images of it. Here are some images I took of the bathing juvenile eagles; this very wet one is sunning it self dry -
drying out his or her feathers, I think that this juvenile eagle could be a 3rd year bird. Can anyone clear that question up.
finally, taking flight! See header above also.
This is where we got separated from the Audubon group. With a dead radio and not capable of communicating with the Audubon group anymore, we just birded our way south along the lake. One of the highlights was finding a Peregrine Falcon almost where we had found one last winter on Lake Street in Bridport. The image bellow is a Cooper's Hawk not a peregrine.
Sunday would prove to be an amazing birding day. We covered south of Rt 125 Bridport. This is a beautiful Copper's Hawk image that Bill made.
