Just to show you that Dead Creek never seems to get less interesting  
there were massive amounts of shorebirds today at Dead Creek.  Here  
is a tally of what Mike Lester and I found from 9am to 1pm:

Great Blue Heron
American Widgeon
Green-wing Teal
Turkey Vulture (West Rd.)
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Merlin
RING-NECKED PHEASANT ( 1 female with many Juveniles along West Rd.) - 
Mike tells me this is a rare breeder for VT.
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
BAIRD'S SANDPIPER (3+)
Pectoral Sandpiper (Many)
DUNLIN (1 all the way down at the far side)
SILT SANDPIPER (1 or 2)
RED-NECKED PHALAROPE (3)
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Morning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Barn Swallow
WINTER WREN (West Rd.)
Gray Catbird
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
House Sparrow
Warbling Vireo (Heard* Slang Rd.)
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Chipping Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird

Also Reported in the Morning by others by not seen by ourselves:

Black-bellied Plover
White-rumped Sandpiper
Ruddy Turnstone

Big Misses on the shorebird Scene: Spotted Sandpiper, Solitary  
Sandpiper, Dowitcher, Western Sandpiper, and Sanderling.  (Also  
people should look out for other types of Phalaropes).

The Shorebirds were moving around a lot today due to the heavy  
presence of a (multiple?) Merlin(s).  Shorebirds could be seen all  
the way from the parking lots, to the nice mudflats and to the far  
mudflats which you can look at by going to the second parking lot,  
walking through a field and voila!  It seems that some of the birds  
come/leave as the day goes on.  There must be some other shorebird  
habitat nearby.  The Black-bellied Plover and Turnstone should have  
been easy to spot but were nowhere to be found and the Dunlin we saw  
was only seen for a few minutes.  Also Dead Creek is living up to its  
name.  Dead Fish are everywhere and there is also a Dead Great Blue  
Heron and Yellowlegs on the mudflats and I also found a dead Ring- 
billed Gull and a skeletal Deer Head.  The Phalaropes are moving  
around the whole creek but can always be easily spotted swimming out  
in the water.  The Stilt are being notoriously hard to find but  
Baird's was one of the first shorebirds we found.  The Ring-necked  
Pheasant family was nice.  It looked like the had a good year with a  
bunch of young with the mother.

Pictures of some of the birds are at (Bad Light for Most of the Day):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77523243@N00/?saved=1

Thomas Ford-Hutchinson
UVM, Burlington