Lovely morning walk with Stephen Paul Broker at the Mendell’s Folly Bethany Land Trust, Inc. parcel. We heard and/or saw sign of mammals: Beaver (feeding evidence), Bobcat (scat), and Red Fox (scat and the breeding season skunk-like scent marking at the trailhead to the meadow), and delightful birds: including Virginia Rail heard at the far end of the wetland, Great Blue Heron floating by overhead, Golden-crowned Kinglets hovering in the canopy, Swamp Sparrow, a Cooper’s Hawk that lifted up into the trees from the forest floor, and my favorite song and sight of the morning: a diminutive but energetic Winter Wren singing its high tinkering trills in the tangles of brush at the wetland edge.
Here’s a Cornell Lab recording for your listening pleasure :>)
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Winter_Wren/sounds
What a gem of a place. Thanks BLT for conserving this land, and to Carol Lambiase, Bob Harrison and their fabulous trail crew for maintaining these and other BLT trails.
