January Snowy Owl Update
This blog entry is a companion to the Winter Bird Forecasts brought to you by Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. Be sure to check out Winter Bird Forecast #3! As we enter the New Year we in the Mid-Atlantic and New England have been feeling mostly below-average temperatures as the weather finally reflects the climate more than it has. Snow cover is certainly starting to shape up over the landscape and birds like the Snowy Owl are now camouflaged against our earth and skies. I wanted to see where we were in this winter’s Snowy Owl irruption,...
Read MoreRusty Blackbird Blitz 2015 – Areas of Interest
As a follow up to this recent blog entry here is an important link to the Areas of Interest for the Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz 2015. These locations had large flocks of Rusty Blackbirds present during the 2014 spring migration and should definitely be monitored in 2015. Undoubtedly there will be more areas added thanks to new discoveries by citizen scientists in 2015, but this provides a great road map and a way to be sure we check out the best hotspots this spring. At the very least it serves as a way to find Rusty Blackbirds near you.
Read MoreRusty Blackbird Blitz 2015
Rusty Blackbirds: Looking Forward, Looking Back Authors: Judith Scarl, International Coordinator, Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz (www.rustyblackbird.org) Scott Kruitbosch, Conservation & Outreach Coordinator, Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History (www.rtpi.org) Connecticut Coordinator, Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz A female Rusty Blackbird huddles on a Minnesota rooftop during a blizzard, fluffing herself into a ball to keep warm. A male flips leaves in a roadside ditch in Maryland, navigating partially frozen mud to hunt for spring’s first invertebrates. A...
Read MoreeBird the New Year
If you have yet to join our partners at eBird as a citizen scientist please do so in 2015! This free global database will forever store your bird sightings for you and your friends to enjoy and researchers and conservationists to use to protect and save the very species you are seeing. It is a mutually beneficial contribution to science and our feathered friends. Can you imagine how high Roger Tory Peterson’s life list would have been? He would have had hundreds of thousands of checklists from every corner of the Earth. Please make eBird one of your New Year’s Resolutions!
Read MoreOrange-crowned Warblers
As I mentioned previously my first bird of 2015 was the Blue Jay, one of the most well-known species in all of North America. They even have their own team thanks to Toronto. On the opposite end of the spectrum would be a bird like the Orange-crowned Warbler, an uncommon warbler even in some of the more common parts of its range, and a tough one to find in the Northeast in the winter (or any time, really!) regardless of their seemingly higher than average numbers this year. The species has a rather quiet and unassuming behavior and appearance with mostly drab colors, the orange crown being...
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