Hello Vermont Birders: Saturday morning I snuck out at 0430 before my family woke up and hit a few wetland areas. The chorus of Swamp Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, and Spring Peepers made it a challenge to tease out anything else but I managed to hear some other highlights. Route 116 bisects a large cattail marsh on the east side of Shelburne Pond, a litte north of Pond Road. From the roadside I heard an American Bittern thunder-pumping, a grunting Virginia Rail, and several Marsh Wrens. Walking the 0.4 mile stretch of marsh habitat along Pond Road at the southeast end of Shelburne Pond produced a good look at one close Virginia Rail and I could hear three others grunting in different directions. An American Bittern was thunder-pumping way out toward the pond. I also saw a Green Heron stuck to an alder branch motionless. Yesterday evening, my wife, daughter (2), niece (3), and I slipped our canoe into the LaPlatte River at Shelburne Bay. We enjoyed some intimate encounters with a Great Egret, a Great Blue Heron, a Belted Kingfisher, a Caspian Tern, and five adult Black-crowned Night-Herons. A Great Crested Flycatcher "weeping" seemed a tad on the early side. Also, a European Starling was singing a spot-on imitation of an Eastern Wood-Pewee (the springtime bane of every eastern eBird reviewers existence). Cheers, Eric Hynes Hinesburg