Hi folks! Remember me?  I have just returned from my vacation to
Vermont, Quebec, and New Hampshire, and I DID see my lifer Boreal
Chickadee! It was on the Mt. Washington Auto Road in New Hampshire, at
the parking lot just below the 3000 foot altitude marker. I had gone to
Barr Hill preserve, a Nature Conservancy site in Vermont, earlier in the
trip. I am a member of the Conservancy so I checked out all their sites
in both VT and NH on the web before the trip, and this one said it was a
good place to see BOCHs. My husband and I sat for nearly an hour at the
place where the trail guide said BOCHs congregated.  We heard many of
them, at that site and at other sites along the trail. As we were about
to leave, my husband pointed out a bird with a gray back flying away.
He said he had seen that it had a brown head, but I didn't see the head.
Now I think that it was probably a BOCH, but I still consider that my
lifer sighting was in NH. I got a full five seconds of view then,
through my binoculars and everything. I think the trick was that we
pulled into the empty parking lot and saw the birds before they got
spooked by us and flew away.  We left a double handful of sunflower
seeds for them as a thank offering. A very satisfactory addition to my
life list.  Since my husband is not a birder, and not even a morning
person, we didn't see very many other birds that I couldn't see in my
back yard here on Long Island in New York.  Actually there were only
two.  A great blue heron flying over a roadside pond in Vermont, and
ruby-throated hummingbirds coming to a feeder at the Skyline Restaurant
in Marlboro NH. The heat haze made mountain views problematical until
two days ago when it lifted for just a day. On Friday after the BOCH
sighting the visibility at the top of Mt. Washington was only 75 feet,
and the wind was 40 mph. All of which means, I will have to come back to
both Vermont and New Hampshire another time! Many many thanks to
everyone who suggested places to go to see the birds.
S. Hoffmann