Summer in DC is a pretty bleak time birding-wise, and this year that's where I've been almost all summer with the exception of a few quick getaways. Obviously I leap at any opportunity I can to get out of the city, so when I had a long weekend for the 4th of July this year there was no question I was going to try to get out of town. As usual I went with my go-to long weekend destination: Vermont. Nikki was (finally!) arriving to DC on July 10, but I figured that as long as I was back with a couple days to get ready it was no problem. Of course, I should have known that not all would go as planned.
I drove from DC up to Burlington on July 4, arriving late in the evening. The first day was spent seeing family and friends around Burlington, but on the evening of July 5 I headed east to the little town of Waterbury where I was staying for a couple of days in an AirBnb and planned to get out in nature a little bit. I had just a little bit of time before sunset to the Little River area to walk around and try and add a few birds to my Vermont list.
It was a lovely, tranquil evening, the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I ever decided to move away from Vermont (the answer, of course, being that I wanted some things that were hard to find in Vermont, like decent Ethiopian food and also jobs). There were some breeding warblers singing including Common Yellowthroats, Chestnut-sided Warblers, and American Redstarts, and lots of beautiful Cedar Waxwings hanging out in the trees. The local flowers and insects were also cool, but mostly it was just a pleasant walk in the Vermont wilderness.
 |
| Cedar Waxwing |
 |
| Canadian Tiger Swallowtail |
 |
| Two-horned Treehopper (Stictocephala diceros) |
 |
| Spotted Cucumber Beetle |
 |
| Scenes from my evening walk |
The next day I decided to do a hike up Mount Mansfield, the highest mountain in Vermont and a breeding area for Bicknell's Thrush which was one of the only possible lifers for me in the northeastern US. I originally planned to make it a proper hike from one of the usual trailheads, but I got a late enough start in the morning that I instead had to cough up the money for the toll road that goes most of the way up to the top. It was a beautiful drive though, and it started out with great looks at a baby Striped Skunk walking along the road.
 |
| Striped Skunk |
To my surprise the toll road went almost all the way to the top of Mount Mansfield, going through deciduous beech-maple forest at the bottom to mossy pine forest all the way up to the stunted spruce krummholz that is the main breeding habitat for Bicknell's Thrush. It's a surreally beautiful area, particularly with the wildflowers carpeting the ground in many areas. The only problem was that the whole area was encased in fog, with barely any visibility. Not the spectacular vistas I'd hoped for, but I was there for the birds more than for the landscape.
 |
| Scenes from the krummholz on top of Mansfield |
The birds were there despite the fog, including several species that were otherwise breeding much further north. The cool thing about the high-altitude areas of New England, including Mount Mansfield, is that they form southern refugia for some species that were common during the ice age but mostly disappeared as the glaciers retreated and the region was taken over by deciduous forests. For birds, this meant that the whole mountain was full to bursting with singing Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Blackpoll Warblers, White-throated Sparrows, and Winter Wrens. Were the Bicknell's Thrush there? Well, yes they were. In fact, I had 8 or 9 of them singing as I hiked along the ridgeline toward the summit. The only problem was that they're far more skulky than any other thrush I've ever looked for, and seemingly refuse to sit anywhere except for smack dab in the middle of the thickest shrubbery they can find. In an hour or so of trying I only ever got one decent 2-second look at a Bicknell's Thrush before it disappeared once again. It was a lifer, but rather frustrating to miss getting a picture.
 |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet |
 |
| White-throated Sparrow |
 |
| Winter Wren (in the summer!) |
 |
| Variable Duskyface Fly (Melanostoma mellinum) in a Meadow Buttercup |
 |
| Orange Hawkweed |
 |
| Margined Calligrapher (Toxostoma calligrapha) |
 |
| Meadow Buttercup |
 |
| Brownish Sedge (Carex brunnescens) |
 |
| Greenland Stitchwort (Mononeuria groenlandica) – as the name suggests, usually only found much further north |
 |
| Bog Bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), another boreal refugium species |
 |
| Bog Labrador Tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) – also found all the way up to Greenland, with this being the very southern end of its range |
 |
| Black Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) |
 |
| Mountain Woodsorrel (Oxalis montana) |
 |
| Rugosa Rose (Rosa rugosa) with a Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) |
 |
| The typical view along the trail |
 |
| Looking down toward Burlington in a rare fog break |
I had hoped to make it all the way to the summit, but that would have been a few miles of hiking and I still had to meet my friend Jeannie for lunch. I decided to turn back early, satisfied with a good morning of hiking and birding. It was when I got back to my car that the weekend went south.
Now, this sordid tale begins way back in West Virginia, a month or so before my Vermont trip. During that particular adventure my car's alternator suddenly gave out, and the whole thing suddenly shut down in the middle of nowhere. After many trials and tribulations we were able to find a new alternator and, with all the mechanics closed or not taking appointments, ended up paying a random dude on a motorcycle who looked like redneck Jesus to put it in. All seemed well, and although I'd been meaning to get my car in for service before I came to Vermont I didn't find the time for it and it was driving fine anyway.
Fast forward to July, when I turned on my car at the top of Mount Mansfield and saw that the tell-tale "low battery" light was on. I instantly knew what that meant, even though I had no idea why it was happening again. I also knew that I had about 30 miles or so of driving before the battery totally died- enough to get me down to Waterbury where I was meeting Jeannie, but not much further. Oh, and it was once again a holiday weekend and all the car repair places were closed. The fun was beginning once again.
With the Jeopardy theme song playing in the back of my head, I made my way down the mountain with every possible electric thing in my car unplugged or turned off to save battery. I managed to make it down to Waterbury, but just as I was pulling into my parking spot everything in the car was once again starting to shut down, indicating the battery was once again totally dead. As with the last time, it was the generosity of friends that saved me: Jeannie and her boyfriend let me hang out in Waterbury and charge my phone while I figured out a plan of action, drove me to nearby Montpelier to buy a new car battery, and helped me install it so that I would have enough juice to make it to the nearest repair center. My friend Clayton then picked me up in Waterbury and drove me all the way to the Burlington airport where I could pick up a rental car to drive while I waited to bring my real car in.
I had one more night at my AirBnb and had intended to drive back to DC that Sunday, but obviously that wasn't going to happen. Instead Jeannie incredibly generously let me stay with her in Montpelier as long as I needed while I figured out car things–which was good since I wasn't able to get an appointment at a car repair place until Monday. Sunday morning I went down to Middlebury to go to church service and hang out with friends from my college days, including a lovely afternoon reminiscing with François Clemmons, one of the last heroes of the Civil Rights era and a good friend. The drive was beautiful as always, even if I was doing it in a rental car and worrying the whole time about making it down to DC in time for Nikki's arrival.
 |
| The Green Mountains along Route 116 |
 |
| Sunset from my refuge in Montpelier |
It wasn't until Monday afternoon that I was able to bring my real car into the service center in Montpelier. The first thing the repair specialist said when he opened up my hood was "well I've never seen that before"–always something you want to hear from a professional car fixer. After lots of tinkering and diagnosticating, it turned out that when the alternator was put in not all the bolts had been tightened correctly, which created arcing within the engine and fried not only the alternator but several other important parts. In non-technical terms, the repair guy's verdict was "honestly it's surprising that the car didn't just catch on fire." As Cassie put it on the West Virginia group chat, Redneck Jesus was a false prophet.
 |
| Not a car expert, but I don't think this is supposed to happen. |
It was going to be another day or so before the right parts were available, so I spent another night at Jeannie's place working remotely. Honestly any other time I would have been pleased as punch to be stuck indefinitely in Vermont, but given that Nikki was arriving to DC on Wednesday the clock was ticking. Tuesday I got even more bad news: the damage to the engine was more extensive than it had originally seemed, and it was going to take several weeks and thousands of dollars to fix it. It was so expensive in fact that repairing my old car was going to be about as expensive as a down payment on an entirely new one.
That wasn't exactly the choice I was hoping to be faced with, and definitely not how I intended to spend a nice quiet weekend in Vermont. Still, after some hemming and hawing followed by hurried calls to banks and insurance providers, I ended up driving out of Montpelier that day with an entirely new Subaru. That was the only way for me to make it to DC in time for Nikki's arrival and not have to worry about spending lots of money on future repairs. Not exactly ideal and my bank account hasn't forgiven me yet, but par for the course for my general car luck (car-ma?) I suppose.
 |
| ...yay? |
It wasn't until Wednesday morning at 4AM that I finally arrived back in DC after breaking in my new car with an all-night drive. It had been one of the more stressful (and certainly the most expensive) trips of the year, but I still consider myself lucky to have been able to rely on so many different friends for places to stay, free rides, and general good company. Vermont is probably the best place in the world for me to have been stranded and as always I'm looking forward to returning- ideally with more time for birding and hiking and less time in car dealerships.
Comments
Post a Comment