General - Kent Pond

Date: 5/27/21
Time: 6:50 am - 1:00 pm
Location: Kent Pond, Killington--including surround snippet of AT and some wetland
Weather: Started out partly sunny when I arrived, minimal wind. Then around 9/10am, the wind kicked up to around 15 mph with gusts of 22 mph. The temp was around 65 deg F when I arrived, dropping when the clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up, down to 62. It was warmer sheltered under the trees.

Habitat / Narrative:
I started out on the pond itself and kayaked the perimeter, recording audio and getting a few pics. The surrounding area is a bit of a mixed bag--there's some micro-sections of cattail marsh along the edges, but that's mainly close to the access point where the pond looks extremely shallow because of the debris.
From there I hit a long stretch of some conifers with deciduous trees further in, and I met a beaver on the windward side. This is around 9am, and the wind picked up for a stretch there, so I hauled across and tried to stay tight to the shore. I avoided the long stretch of road that people fish off of, and lingered in the corners where there were some reeds. Then I started going along to the access point, and that's where I met the common grackle. Unfortunately the wind was too high to record anything--not that anyone was trying to sing. There were some larger conifers on this side, and a few softwoods, but further in it gets more deciduous and mature.
I detoured and spent a few minutes trying to see the Common Loon from afar (there's a tiny island close to the access point that's buoyed off to protect the nest site), but I only caught a blurry, blurry glimpse. The wind was really moving at that point, and the waves made it pretty difficult to hold the binoculars and keep the paddle in the boat. A Bank Swallow swooped overhead, but it was far too quick to get any media for.
Once I'd gotten out of the water, I transitioned to followed the AT along the shore heading east and then further in to a forest. The forest was first mostly a dense layer of understory to get through before it cleared out to more mature conifers with a pretty wet ground, transitioning to deciduous with a few conifer stands before long. That's when a Pileated Woodpecker swooped down and landed on a close tree--I knew they were big in theory, but it was super cool to see it in person and so close up. That was around 10, and for the next hour the trail was actually pretty busy--loads of hikers, probably enjoying the summer day that won't fry them. I heard a Baltimore Oriole, but the wind cooked that audio. In addition with the wind, it was difficult to get any media so I made the decision to backtrack and follow a dirt road and see what I could see. I saw the Eastern Kingbird in a tree in someone's yard, and I think one of the audio clips is from along that road (I had to scrap a few because of cars going by). Then I found what I thought would be some nice shrubland, but it turned out to be a very dense marsh. Tall shrubbery reached around 10 feet up, with some smaller brush at the water level--there was lots of standing water.

Continuing on, this is when mistakes were made. I found a 'trail' that seemed to cut through a separate boggy marsh on the other side--lots of those scraggly wetland conifers, brush and shrubs above my head but with a denser understory and no visible standing water. The trail was marked out with a MacGyver boardwalk of pallets, and looked like it would lead into a nice mature stand of hardwoods. Unfortunately, the pallets ran out quickly and I managed to get to the edge and solid ground, heard some wetland birds I'm fairly certain was a Flycatcher--Alder or Willow, because of that rapid throaty wolf-whistle. And then something I'm not confident on but I think was a Marsh Wren. I also may have heard a Belted Kingfisher, but I'm not sure if it was wishful thinking/the wind, and it might be in that friends/birds observation instead.

Then my phone died, and I made my way through the hardwoods--I saw some kind of brown-backed Thrush, but it flew too high too quick so I wasn't able to ID it with my binos and the sun. The breast was mostly light with some dark spots, and a light/white belly. I was thinking Hermit Thrush, but I honestly didn't get a good enough look to see how far down the spotting went or if it was just some dappling from the shadows on the leaves. That was between noon and 1.

Posted on May 27, 2021 11:22 PM by avi_