Vermont eBird Checklist S70880228

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Main details

Location 80 N Winooski Ave, Burlington US-VT 44.48282, -73.21092

Additional details

People

Owner Richard Littauer

Effort

Protocol:  Stationary
  • Observers:  2

Checklist Comments

Submitted from eBird for iOS, version 2.0.122

Observations

  1. Number observed:  2

    Details

    One adult, one chick in the nest, and a contractor actively using an excavator to destroy that side of the building. This is the most memorable state birds I’ve had in a while, and I’m not happy about it.

    I had been alerted to this nest by a friend in the area. The vulture was nesting in the second floor of an old building in a back lot behind the driveway in downtown Burlington. When I arrived, there was no adult present, but rather the contractor and a large excavator. The contractor was actively removing washing machines from the first floor, through a large gap in the wall, directly beneath the nest. The nest was very open to the elements, although recessed around eight feet under the roof of the building. By standing on a dead tree stump around 8 feet up, 40 feet away, I was able to barely see the white head of the chick beyond some debris. I was unable to get a close identification of the chick.

    After around ten minutes, one of the parents returned - with Black Vultures, both the mother and the father care for the chick, and they are sexually monomorphic. The parent roosted on a tree ten feet up and ten feet over from the building, watching the excavator, bill-cleaning, and scratching itself. After twenty minutes, I left, as I was unlikely to get a better shot of the chick without disturbing the nest by climbing up to the second floor, and was there was nothing left to do. I would have liked to have gotten sound, but there was no way to do this without disturbing the adult vulture, and the contractor was doing enough of that, as is.

    Breeding & Behavior Code:

    ON Occupied Nest (Confirmed)

    Media

  2. Number observed:  2
  3. Number observed:  1
  4. Number observed:  1
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