I spent some time over break at the Green Mountain Audubon Center in Huntington, Vermont. When I was younger, past when I can even remember, I attended their summer camps, and I’ve been working at Audubon on and off for the past 5 years. It’s been a safe space for me throughout my entire life, so I visited it over break a few times to say hi!
Audubon has a rich variety of ecological areas- I’ve included photos of some of my favorites (not recent, but from the past summer). It has fields, forests, rivers, ponds (including a beaver pond!), and marshy areas. Unlike Burlington, it’s located in a very rural area, and as such, has a lot less foot and car traffic. My spot in Centennial Woods has a lot less diversity and richness of life in the area- the only birds I hear there regularly are pileated woodpeckers, crows, and blue jays. Audubon is home to all kinds of birds. I’ve seen thirty-odd red-winged blackbirds take off in the dusk at once from Peeper Pond, owls fly overhead the same night, scarlet tanagers climb the branches over my head at the staff building, grouse scare me half to death as they fly out from under my feet- there’s so much life at Audubon! It always makes me feel at home when I visit. As I mentioned, it’s also been a vital safe space for me throughout my life, and I know that whenever I need to escape, it’s there for me. I never shut up about this place- it’s because I love it so much.
One of my favorite memories ever was working over this past summer as a junior conservation technician. One day it was 90 degrees, humid, and sunny (aka hellish), and our job was to monitor a forestry plot we had created in February. The woods we were in were so thick that you couldn’t see from one side of the plot to the other, and the thorns were vicious. I wore shorts that morning. Bad move. But I was working with my friends, and even as my legs got shredded, I had so much fun goofing around and discovering cool things. There were so many species in that little plot- my favorite that we found was the American Hophornbeam. Wacky name for a really cool tree.
Sugaring in the sugarbush! Audubon runs and supports a really cool program called Bird-Friendly Maple that ensures that bird habitat and safety is provided for even as we maintain and harvest from its active sugarbush.
