By Abby Wolcott

After several days of rain, the skies were clear and a handful of birders arrived at the trail head.  We headed down into the sanctuary.  We noted the lush greenery and before long a wood thrush beckoned us with his mournful, flute-like song.  We homed in on his call and he was cooperative enough to appear with his fetching spotted pot belly.  An assortment of the usual residents made themselves known including cardinals, red bellied woodpeckers, blue jays, chickadees, and tufted titmice.  Our route took us over the Billy Goat Gruff Bridge, and we scanned the trees for warblers and a yellow warbler posted up on a branch in the sunlight making the past days of deluge seems like a distant memory.  Further on, yellow-rumped warblers flitted in the treetops and a pair of phoebes kept ahead of us on the trail with their usual tail wagging and stellar posture.

We looped around admiring the wildflowers and gazed into the vernal pools which were quiet now that the peepers and wood frogs have found their mates.  By the pools, the elusive oven bird called and called and we craned our necks to see this jaunty fellow.  He had the last laugh by staying hidden, but we vowed to return again and seek him out.

Back over the bridge, we took a side trail to the south where trillium gave us quite a show with several color varieties. We admired the wildflowers and listened for spring migrants.  As so often is the case, when we were scanning the treetops, stories were revealed about birding throughout New England and beyond and my own list of places to bird grew with each story.

We trekked up through the pine trees where, appropriately enough, a pine warbler serenaded us. We knew we couldn’t stay out all day so we headed back around the small pond at the beginning of the trail and headed up the hill. With each step we were reminded of how fortunate we were to spend a morning in this preserve of over 80 acres which has been set aside by forward thinking people and cared for by the HAS.