Notes from the St. Francis Valley Naturalists’ Club

tree swallows have returned to Curry pond (behind Bishop’s University) but they are probably quite hungry because we have not had enough warm days to release many insects from their winter state. A “rattle” of Kingfishers was seen over the river near the Marais Réal D.-carbonneau and some Wood Ducks were observed on the swamp itself to join the Mallards and the Ring Necked Ducks that arrived earlier in the area. If you are lucky you might flush a Wilson’s Snipe when walking on a swampy field; these are stocky birds with a long beak that make a characteristic winnowing sound when in flight. Closer to home you will be seeing a lot of very busy little brown birds in your bushes, these could be white throated sparrows, house sparrows, chipping sparrows, finches (they have a thicker beak than the sparrows) or even a rare Carolina Wren. If you want to identify your “little brown bird”, try to get a look at the head and listen to the song. The patterns, colors, and sounds are quite characteristic. You can take your findings to “allaboutbirds.org”. This site has both pictures and the songs of all the birds that you are likely to see and it allows input of all the features that you have observed; if you are lucky it will identify the bird. The first warbler to be photographed by a member this year in Lennoxville was a pine warbler in the St Francis road area. Once the first warbler has been spotted, serious birders and those of us with unreliable memories try to get an advance on the season by re-learning the songs of the summer birds before their arrival. There are a series of CDS available such as “Peterson’s Field Guide: Birding by Ear” or “Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs, Audiobooks”. Personally, unlike others in the club, I find this learning method to be particularly ineffective without a picture although it is a good treatment for insomnia. I prefer to be