Common Tern
Here is a Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) photographed recently while resting on a rock at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison, Connecticut. Memorial Day weekend is one of the busiest times of the year for us in the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds as it marks the unofficial beginning of the summer beach season. This is a critical time for our beach nesting birds with Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers having both hatchlings and nests throughout the state while the Least and Common Terns begin to create colonies and lay eggs as well. It seems 2016 will be a mostly warmer than...
Read MoreFlagged Piping Plover
We have found multiple flagged/banded Piping Plovers in Connecticut in 2016, and here is the story of one of them. Back on March 31 one of our coastal waterbird technicians, Ewa Holland, found a green flagged “09C” bird at Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison. It remained there until at least last Sunday, May 22, appropriately last seen by Ewa. It had not had nesting success and was still attempting to find a place and mate in poor habitat on a small section of beach. It was with another bird on May 22 and doing aerial displays. However, another one of our field staff,...
Read MoreLeast Terns Return
The terns have returned! Here we have a pair of Least Terns photographed off Stratford Point in Connecticut last week. Both Least and Common Terns, two of the focal species in the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds, are back in Connecticut and we will be monitoring them as we do Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers. Other terns, such as Forster’s and Caspian, have returned as well. Also keep an eye out for Roseate, Royal and even more rare terns like Gull-billed. We hope the birds will cooperate and Least Terns colonies will set up in Stratford, Milford, West Haven,...
Read MorePiping Plover Monitoring
This Piping Plover may be asking, “What do you plan to do about beach conservation today?” as we continue our nonstop work to help monitor and protect them, the American Oystercatcher, Least and Common Terns, and more imperiled waterbird species that nest in Connecticut. It has been a difficult stretch of weather for us in the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History), and we have a ton of field work, outreach and education to get done with a limited staff. We have nests that have been washed out by...
Read MoreFencing & Signage Operations Complete
Last week we finished string fencing and signage operations for the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds on our Connecticut beaches. We had a tremendous volunteer turnout at some of the most difficult and critical sites including Sandy/Morse Points in West Haven, Bluff Point State Park in Groton, and Long Beach in Stratford. It was a gorgeous April day for this work at Long Beach, and most of it was completed in only a few hours thanks to the terrific help. This work was completed just in time as we now have the first Piping Plover and American Oystercatcher nests of 2016...
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