Vermont is the only state in New England with no ocean coastline. But every year, ocean birds visit the Green Mountain State as they migrate over Lake Champlain.
Vermont Public’s Lexi Krupp joined a group of birders who went out in search of seabirds.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Chip Darmstadt: Everything you see here right now are ring-billed gulls. Different age classes. Oh what’s this coming in? It’s coming in fast. Oh, another ring-billed gull.
Lexi Krupp: Chip Darmstadt, of Burlington, stands on the deck of the University of Vermont’s research vessel.
It’s a bright, cloudless morning in September. And today’s trip is more of a pleasure cruise than a scientific expedition. Two dozen passengers are armed with binoculars and cameras, looking for birds you might expect to find over the Atlantic — not some 200 miles away, in Vermont.
There's a strategy for attracting these ocean birds to the boat. Someone stands on the stern, tossing out cheese puffs. It doesn't take long for a flock of gulls to gather.
And with these gulls, comes the possibility of other, more rare birds. Like the parasitic jaeger: It looks like a big gull, about the size of a crow.
Chip Darmstadt: Just the name, parasitic jaeger, they’re known for being kleptoparasites — they harass other birds and steal their food. So part of the reason to chum for the gulls, is the gulls might attract other more rare gulls, but also jaegers, if they’re in the neighborhood.
Lexi Krupp: And I didn’t know that gulls like cheese puffs.
Chip Darmstadt: Oh yeah, who doesn’t?
Lexi Krupp: These boat rides started about a decade ago, organized by a birder named Allan Strong.
He’s a professor at the University of Vermont, where he studies bird ecology and conservation. He knew that migrating birds use Lake Champlain as a passageway to the ocean. And he wanted to try to see them.
Allan Strong: Things like northern gannets, or scoters, red-throated loons. These are birds that even if you're on the Atlantic coast, you don’t actually see all that often. So really, very cool.
Lexi Krupp: He’s been leading the trips every year. He says some have been sort of boring. And then there’s other days —
Allan Strong: There have been some of those days where the rare birds — in particular, the jaegers — that we're looking for, have literally been flying right around the boat or landed right beside the boat. It’s just awesome.
Lexi Krupp: The jaegers. A bunch of people talked about why these birds are so special, like Bernard Foy, of Danville.
Bernard Foy: Here we’re really hoping for the jaegers, which are also really quite amazing because they’ve come quite a few thousand miles to get here.
Roo Slagle: For one thing they're kind of rare here, but it’s real exciting when you see them, and then they are kind of — they are not very nice. Like if a gull has some food, they’ll go after the gull and make them drop it — and they’ll steal it.
Lexi Krupp: Roo Slagle, from Belvidere, has been coming on these trips for years.
Roo Slagle: One year, I think we counted — it was near 200 loons. It's like what? That many loons? So you never know what you are going to see.
Lexi Krupp: For Roo, that not knowing what you’re going to see, it’s sort of changed her life.
Roo Slagle: It makes getting up in the morning kind of more fun. Especially this time of year.
Chip Darmstadt: Everything’s migrating right now — warblers, hawks, shorebirds, seabirds. This is the time to be out for sure.
Lexi Krupp: And there’s something magical about all these birds traveling thousands of miles to make for warmer climes.
Bernard Foy: It’s still just mystifying to me that something so small, like a ruby-throated hummingbird, can cross continents and cross the Gulf of Mexico. It doesn’t seem possible. It’s just a miracle of nature.
Lexi Krupp: After four hours of cruising Lake Champlain, the crew didn’t see any jaegers.
But there were migrating shorebirds like red-necked phalaropes and ruddy turnstones.
A bald eagle flew across the lake. And hundreds of cormorants lined the rocky cliffs of the Four Brothers Islands.
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