McCuen Slang

Tips for Birding

Scan the lake from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department boat launch parking lot or walk the sort path southwest to another view of the lake.

About Whitney Creek/Hospital Creek Wildlife Management Area

See all hotspots at Whitney Creek/Hospital Creek Wildlife Management Area

Whitney/Hospital Creek Wildlife Management Area (WMA) is located in west-central Vermont in the town of Addison, adjacent to Lake Champlain. The Area’s 157 acres are owned by the State of Vermont and managed by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. The State owns conservation easements on an additional 439 acres. Access by foot is via a gated road on the north side of the causeway crossing Whitney Creek on VT-125 in Addison. There is a small parking area on the west side of VT-125, just north of the causeway. One can access the Hospital Creek portion from privately-owned campgrounds along VT-125, with permission.

This WMA also includes the McCuen Slang Fishing Access Area, which is located just south of the causeway on VT-125. It is a 53-acre parcel, with a dam, a small wetland, and a boat ramp.

Both Whitney and Hospital Creeks are short lowland streams that empty into Lake Champlain and have extensive lake-level wetlands. The WMA is a mix of emergent and scrub/shrub wetlands, old fields, an apple orchard, and forests. Farms and scattered woodlots surround it. The woods are composed mostly of white ash, red maple, shagbark hickory, red oak, and hophornbeam. Buttonbush scrub-shrub swamp creates dense thickets that provide excellent cover for wildlife. The marshes are rich in aquatic plants. Cattail and wild rice are the dominant graminoids. River bulrush, three-way sedge, and umbrella-sedges are present, as well as pickerelweed, flowering rush, yellow pond lilies, water-plantain, water-smartweed, water-dock, bulrushes, burr-reeds, and duckweed.

Features

  • Roadside viewing

  • Restrooms on site

  • Wheelchair accessible trail

  • Entrance fee

Content from Whitney Creek and Hospital Creek Wildlife Management Area guide and map and Birdwatching in Vermont, p. 70

Last updated October 8, 2023