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.Image of Great Egret with pray
Bill and his son had to leave, I stayed and kept birding the area. here is a list for today:Great Egret 1
Wood Duck 4
Ringbillied Gull 15
Great Blue Heron 1
Mallard 2
Tree Swallow 9
Cardinal 1
Crow 4
Kestrel 2 one flying by with pray
Yellow Bellied Sapsucker 2 courting
Killdeer 3
Canada Geese 6
White Breasted Nuthatch 1
Yellow shafted Flicker 1
Robin 2
and 7 Painted Turtles basking in the sun
About 5;30 I headed west on Rt 73 to see what I could see, the farm at the junction of Rt 73 and 30 is always productive and today was no different. Grackle taking flight
Kestrel 2 Killdeer 3
Sharp-shin 1
Hundreds of Starlings, Cowbirds, Grackles and Redwinged Black Birds maybe a thousand in all
this image is of 268++Cowbirds gritting on the side of the road, spooked by traffic
Morning Dove 7 and this Wood Chuck with a mouth full of fresh salad.
Good Birding
Pete
Story and images © Peter Manship all rights reserved
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)
Here is the list of birds and mammals for the day:
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 
Note the dark throat which is typical of northern Canada 
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 
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 
Sunday would prove to be an amazing birding day. We covered south of Rt 125 
Jason signaled the others and "texted" the other NH birders who were combing the seacoast for an Ivory Gull, which was never found. It was amazing! Ten minutes later it was like old home week; people started pouring in to see the Sage Thrasher.
This Horned Lark made a small bowl in the sand by flipping its wings. You can see sand flying in the next image.
All in all I had a great time seeing everyone again and spending the rest of the afternoon birding the NH seacoast. Interestingly, they were all looking for high point value birds for the 
It started out slowly, but that changed very quickly. There were three streams of birds - one north and south of our location and one overhead. That's not to say there weren't others;
there were. They were scope range at best and more importantly, largely overlooked because of the distance to them. Plus there was an extraordinary number of blackbirds flying by at close range. The stream to the southeast was very large and dense, but you had to look through a scope to see it. Case in point. The image below shows birds passing in front of the moon . Not too far away, but
in the lower left hand corner is a distant and larger group of blackbirds passing by that went unnoticed by me until I got home and was looking at the images on the computer. Image below is a 200% enlargement of the marked area from the image above.
This is an example of what it was like. It points out how hard it would be to try and get an accurate count of the total number of blackbirds flying in to the Great Bog roost area in Portsmouth NH.
The dark pink area on the horizon in the center of the above image looked like this image below through my 400mm lens.
It was a life experience that is very difficult for me to put in words. Even the images don't convey the scope of the event. They do, however, offer fragments of a much larger picture. The image below is looking east and similar views were going on to the south and west when I recorded this image. The roost fly-in lasted about 45 minutes or so and the sound was impressive.
What I would say, is that if this happens again next year, a trip down there to experience it first hand would be highly recommended. Who knows, maybe we could carpool next year!
Marv Elliott of the Rutland Audubon had the winning guess of Nov 4th. A special thanks to all 47 people that entered the Thelma Mileage Contest. Marv will be receiving a framed Red-tailed Hawk image from those taken at Mt Philo back in September. Again, thanks for taking the time to enter.
As 8:30 rolled around I noticed that there weren't any birders here. They must be starting somewhere else. No biggie, I'll bird the coast and eventually our paths will cross.
On the north side of Rye Harbor State Park there were quite a few shorebirds working the wrack line (washed up seaweed, etc.). I settled in photographing the shorebirds when I flushed a sparrow that looked different. Couldn't relocate so I was returning to photograph the shorebirds when it popped up just in front of me. After photographing it I asked Denny Abbott if he knew what it was. Looking at the image "Ipswich" type Savannah Sparrow was his response. A life bird for me! Here are some image of the 
and some shorebirds - 
A molting juvenile 
juvenile Black-Bellied Plover:
There was a flock of about 70 Snow Buntings feeding in the parking area. 
I left Denny and headed north. I was hopping to find Steve and the 
Here is a link to images of the M
As the day was coming to an end, I asked Steve if we could head over to see "The River of Blackbirds." I
More info and images from the "River of Blackbirds" in a separate post. Plus Thelma turned 200,000 contest results in next post.