Last Saturday, May 19 on a hillside above the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. 73 degrees and sunny, almost windless.

Birds

b & w warbler
b-throated blue warbler
b-throated green warbler
ovenbird
blackburnian warbler
red-eyed vireo
gr-crested flycatcher
scarlet tanager (many singing)
bluejay
ravens
osprey
peregrine
wood duck
ring-billed gull
double-crested cormorant

Mammals

porcupine—sunning on a horizontal limb
otter—toilet (regular haul-out site)
black bear (sign)—moving rocks looking for ants
coyote—scat

Reptiles (my reason for being there)

five-lined skink—5
northern water snake—1
black rat snake—1
timber rattlesnake—79, many of which were slowly dispersing upward along the edge of a waterfall

Fish

spotted gar— 100+ spawning along the shoreline. Each 4-foot female was attended by three to five males. When I returned to the water in late afternoon sticky, pink-colered eggs covered the rocky shallows.
bluegills — nesting in sandy patches away from the rocks