Find Marked Piping Plovers
If you are birding beaches on the Atlantic Coast this spring and summer please be on the lookout for Piping Plovers bearing bands and flags. Information for reporting each flag color is provided below. If you are in Connecticut please cc both Laura.Saucier@ct.gov and ctwaterbirds@gmail.com with any reports, and feel free to email us with any questions. Please include the following information with each report: Flag and band colors, location on each leg, and any alphanumeric codes on the flags. Location of sighting Date of sighting Any photo that shows the bands and/or flag Coded black, gray,...
Read MoreSanderlings on the Beach
I took these Sanderling photos earlier this season before the Atlantic coast of New England was battered by repeated nor’easters and major winter storms, leaving snow and ice coating much of the shoreline. Watching them feed in the tide, darting back and forth with the water and running through the sand, is such a pleasant and relaxing diversion on a bright winter day. Shorebirds will soon be on the move back to the north, and we at the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds are ready! Scott Kruitbosch Conservation & Outreach Coordinator
Read MoreNorthern Gannet (Morus bassanus) record shot between gulls
Normally I crop the photos that I take and show to everyone here on RTPI’s website and social media, but in this case I liked the framing of the raw photograph. Can you see that dot in the middle? Even if this record shot were cropped you would not be able to see much more of the Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) flying out over Long Island Sound from last weekend’s Christmas Bird Count in Stratford, Connecticut. These Ring-billed Gulls happened to be in flight all around me as the rare but increasingly recorded bird passed by offshore. It was one of two Gannets we saw while...
Read MoreOverwintering Great Egrets
Would you believe that I took this photo of a Great Egret (Ardea alba) in Connecticut only last week? It is exceptionally true and resident birders in New England can attest to the fact that we now have them as an overwintering species! Climate change is starting to allow us to keep more long-legged waders and shorebirds, such as the American Oystercatcher, year-round in parts of Long Island Sound and the New England Atlantic coastline. Why bother leaving when you can make it through the entire season? Migration is the most perilous part of the life of a bird and while a colder than usual or...
Read MoreNorthern Wheatear season
The Northern Wheatear is undoubtedly one of my favorite North American nesting species despite the fact it is one of the toughest to find in the contiguous United States. I have no real reason for why I love the bird except for the fact that it is so difficult to call it simply a “North American” species and I admire its biology. Two populations nest on the continent with a western group breeding in Alaska and far northwest Canada with an eastern group in north central and northeastern Canada, the former group migrating southeastward across Asia to move to Europe and finally...
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