AAfCW 2017 Training
The Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds/CT DEEP 2017 monitoring and stewardship season is about to begin! Please see below for details, and please pass this along to any new volunteers you feel would be interested in joining us. We hope all our past monitors will be returning this year after yet another record-setting season in 2017. We can only keep this success going with your help! Spend your summer days at the beach and help protect a federally threatened species! The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds are...
Read MorePiping Plovers in Connecticut Post
Thanks to the Connecticut Post for talking about our work in the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds with Audubon Connecticut! The Connecticut nesting populations have done wonderfully during our work in the past five seasons, setting numerous records, but this year will be difficult after Hurricane Matthew hammered their wintering grounds in the Bahamas: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Piping-plover-population-plummets-10830927.php
Read MoreBuntings Beach
Can you detect the beachgoers in this photo? There are several Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) very well camouflaged against the grass, stones, and sand as seen on the shore last week. Unfortunately there is also plenty of garbage in the shot, and let’s make another New Year’s resolution to clean up our waterways and habitats like this one as much as possible. This pollution has to end one of these years! We at RTPI certainly like Talkin’ Trash, and our Project Wild America Youth Ambassadors plus the Bridgeport WildLife Guards stay engaged in cleaning up our waterways...
Read More2016 AAfCW Totals
I thought it would be a terrific time to update everyone on our Piping Plover and American Oystercatcher numbers for 2016 as we near the end of our year. RTPI is proud to be a partner with Audubon Connecticut for the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds‘ (AAfCW) sixth season in 2017, an active conservation, education and outreach project that provides stewardship and survey efforts by volunteers and staff working to help the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) in an innovative joint initiative on...
Read MoreWestern Sandpiper (Calidris mauri)
Fall shorebirding can be very rewarding in a number of diverse habitats including farm fields, parking lots with pools of water, muddy pastures, grasslands, beaches, and rocky shorelines. Whether they are foraging, preening, or roosting there are always good chances to examine shorebirds for prolonged periods. That does not mean the task of identifying them will be easy! For every readily identifiable bird like the American Oystercatcher there seem to be a few difficult to discern species. The juvenile Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri), as seen below and photographed in late August, can be...
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