Good afternoon all! This is a general update for all of our devoted volunteer shorebird monitors and caring conservationists everywhere.
Our first Piping Plovers arrived back in Connecticut at Milford Point on Monday. However, the blizzard and now potentially more snow this weekend will keep others to the south, and any birds that have already arrived will be strictly foraging. It should be some time before we see any nesting activity, and we can continue to prepare until we officially begin monitoring in April. Please submit your monitoring schedules to us at ctwaterbirds@gmail.com so we can hopefully have most volunteers penciled in to dates and AM/PM slots at our beaches by around April 1.
Piping Plover in West Haven in spring 2016
Even if you could not attend training with AAfCW and CT DEEP then you can still help us! Email us back at ctwaterbirds@gmail.com so we can set you up with one of our seasonal staff for training, and we will also complete the necessary paperwork.
On that note, CT DEEP will be preparing the documents to be made available electronically soon. We are waiting for proper email addresses and contact information to be included in them. Once they are set we will email them to you if you still need a waiver form or wish to review more of what we discussed in training. We will also make them available in our AAfCW blog and remove any older and non-applicable information. Additionally, we will be making a webinar/audio recording of the training available for anyone as a refresher or those who could not attend.
There are a couple of important dates to keep in mind:
-On the morning of April 4 we will be looking for volunteers to help AAfCW, CT DEEP and The Nature Conservancy set up string fencing and signage at Griswold Point in Old Lyme. We will send you more details soon, but please save the date and email us at ctwaterbirds@gmail.com if you can help! Other dates at additional beaches will be scheduled by CT DEEP shortly.
-CT DEEP and AAfCW will host field training for new monitors at Sandy/Morse Points in West Haven on Sunday, April 9, from 10AM to noon. We will walk the beach and see Piping Plovers, American Oystercatchers, and likely other shorebirds while discussing more of the details of monitoring. Please let us know if you’ll be joining us by sending us an email at ctwaterbirds@gmail.com. This session is specifically for first-time volunteers and will certainly help you get a feel for effective and safe beach monitoring.
As always, please let us know if you have any questions, and we will update you again soon as we near the beginning of our field season.
Thank you all!
Scott Kruitbosch
AAfCW Volunteer Coordinator
RTPI Conservation & Outreach Coordinator
