Review Reviews: VINS Nature Center

Dartmouth students forwent so much in the last year and a half of remote learning—not least their proximity to the natural abundance of the Upper Valley. With a substantial tourism industry outside of the economic hegemony of Dartmouth College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the Upper Valley is teeming with delightful ways to spend an idle afternoon. As the foremost experts on idle afternoons, the staff of The Dartmouth Review is traversing this distinctive nook of New England to share with you—the intrepid adventurers, discriminating travelers, and connoisseurs of delectation who make up our readership—the Upper Valley’s most enchanting destinations. We are pleased to announce the reboot of the (in)famed “Review Reviews” series, but with a facelift. Without any exaggeration or self-aggrandizing, this section can best be described as “Gulliver’s Travels meets Condé Nast Traveler, with the scope of Vermont Public Radio.” If you have any tips or places that you think the Review staff should visit, the travel editors can best be reached by carrier pigeon.

Vermont Institute of Natural Science

We begin our travels just a stone’s throw from Hanover in the feigned quaintness of Quechee, Vermont. In essence a factory town of the Quechee Club resort, Quechee seems only to exist for tourists of three varieties: those who like overpriced glassware (Simon Pearce), those who like overpriced antiques (Vermont Antique Mall), and those who like looking at nature but only from the familiar security of a sidewalk (Quechee Gorge)—or in fewer words, New Yorkers.

Thus, it came as a considerable surprise to the Review’s crunchiest staff members that there was any redeeming quality to Quechee at all, which the Vermont Institute of Natural Science’s Nature Center was purported to be. With the lowest possible expectations, we journeyed across the Ledyard Bridge, down I-91, up I-89, and onto Vermont Route 4 where we endured at least three minutes of standstill traffic as hordes of indolent leaf-peepers swarmed the bridge (the sidewalk and the road) over Quechee Gorge. Managing to contain what we can only assume were similar levels of rage to that of a truck driver in Nice, we peacefully made our way past the crowds and took a right turn after the fourth bird billboard to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS).

VINS is nestled in a 47-acre patch of forest on the banks of the Ottauquechee River, but its origins lie just over ten miles west in Woodstock, Vermont. With an effort led by a local dentist and Dartmouth alum, David Laughlin, VINS was founded in 1972. Laughlin was joined in his efforts by fellow Woodstock residents Rick Farrar, June McKnight, and Sally Laughlin, and he is still involved with VINS to this day. Originally, VINS spearheaded river cleanups, bird banding efforts, and local environmental educational activities. Early donors included prominent conservationist and venture capitalist Laurence Rockefeller, known for founding a few national parks but best known for paying to bury the powerlines of his 900 closest neighbors because he found them unsightly. VINS’s Woodstock roots made the village’s Church Hill a sensible headquarters for the nature conservancy.

By 1987, the conservancy expanded to include a Raptor Center, offering upscale accommodations to local hawks, falcons, eagles, and owls. The property’s visitation reached 25,000 annually and, by the mid-1990s, Woodstock residents, quite understandably, prepared to burn down the town’s noisiest B&B out of frustration with the increase in traffic on an otherwise quiet country road. Fleeing under the cover of night—birdcages in tow—VINS Executive Director Sally Laughlin orchestrated the facility’s move to Quechee, which opened to the public in 2004 as the VINS Nature Center.

Seventeen years after this avian odyssey, we arrived. What we found was worthy of a Homeric epic.

The Raptor Encounter

The main event, the one for which we journeyed to VINS (aside from the Reptile Show, which, regretfully, we missed), was the so-called Raptor Encounter. When the time came we hurried, not-quite giddy with anticipation but excited nonetheless, to the sun-dappled grove at the foot of a hill, surrounded by the semi-circular collection of enclosures, wherein nested the rustic amphitheater, featuring a few rows of timber benches, a couple padded roosts scattered about, and a wall of reclaimed lumber centered upstage behind which hid the birds and their handlers, veiled for dramatic effect.

VINS, we learn from the knowledgeable young (surprising) employee whose name, my sincerest apologies, I have forgotten, functions primarily as a sanctuary for species of raptors that are endangered or in decline. Hundreds of patients flock (ha) to the haven each year, collected by locals or sent from sanctuaries around the country. Upon their arrival, trained staff and volunteers work with the birds to hopefully rehabilitate them and then release them back into the wild, where, in the words of one volunteer, they are the most breathtaking. For some birds, however, full rehabilitation is impossible for one reason or another. In these cases, these brave raptors become “ambassadors” for their species, living comfortably in custom-made enclosures and learning to impress visitors who will then become more aware of the plight of these avians, or, if they’re so inclined, fund the mission at VINS. It was four of these ambassadors who we met during the Encounter.

The first was gorgeous little Fairlee, a Peregrine falcon, speckled on his underbelly and dark in the wingtips, with big round eyes and a slightly crooked beak. She had had a bad crash in Vermont a few years back that ended up breaking her wing, which never healed correctly, and meant she could not dive with the accuracy Peregrines are accustomed to. We met Neddick, a Red-tailed Hawk from Maine who also suffered a broken wing. Neddick did not perform aerially during the demonstration because she’s a bit of a drama queen—VINS staff suspect she faked arthritis to earn an early retirement from performing. Tiny Miami was a crowd (and personal) favorite. He is an Eastern Screech Owl from Florida with adorable ear tufts and eyes that blink like a frog’s—and trust me when I tell you that a visit to VINS is well worth the trip if just to see him. The reason for his place in permanent captivity? A head injury sustained some years ago inflicted minor brain damage that left him blind in one eye and an unfortunate habit of being far too friendly to birds who might wish to eat him. Miami sat perched on the single extended index finger of a volunteer (speaking of, VINS is always looking for volunteers, if you have any desire to potentially hold him yourself). Lastly, we were introduced to Chesterland, the Harris’ Hawk from Ohio, who flew mere inches over and between the heads of visitors, which was much more of a show than I ever expected to have from the visit.

Review staff stuck around after the show to meet Montgomery the American Kestrel. VINS volunteers stressed to us that Kestrels, though bountiful today, are in decline. If any reader is aware of Kestrels in his area and wishes to contribute to their preservation, contact VINS; they are supplying those wishing to help with a free nesting box for Kestrels and instructions for gathering information on the health of local Kestrel populations.

The Canopy Walk

Naturally, most raptor encounters come out of the show rapt with the prospect of being a bird. Facing unyielding demand for bird imitations, VINS built a $1.7 million canopy walk in 2019 precisely for the purpose of entertaining those feathered fantasies. Built among the treetops overlooking Dewey Pond, the canopy walk took us over 50 feet above the ground through a network of bridges reminiscent of Endor. We found no Ewoks, but we did find plenty of tiny warblers and woodpeckers, and even a few stray New Yorkers adrift from the Quechee Gorge bridge.

There are numerous raised vistas—called ‘nests’—along the walk. At the end sits the eagle’s nest, a treehouse built several stories above the canopy. The eagle’s nest offers a sweeping panorama of Dewey Pond, the Ottauquechee River, and the flushed forests that draw over three million visitors to Vermont each fall. From this bird’s eye view, Quechee doesn’t seem so bad after all.

The highlight of the canopy walk, however, lies elsewhere. The ‘giant spider web,’ spanning 20 feet in diameter, snatches the top prize from the talons of the eagle’s nest. Suspended below the canopy in a net of ropes that can individually support the weight of an elephant, we lounged in what felt like a waterless jacuzzi, massaged instead by the bristle of the autumnal breeze.

After this much-needed respite, we began our trek back to Hanover. The last ones to leave before closing time, we savored every last chirp, hum, and screech—hoping to acquaint ourselves with our new friends until we could return for our next avian assignation.

Correction: A previous version of this article did not mention VINS founder David Laughlin. The article has been corrected to better reflect this fact.