Harlequin Duck at Stratford Point
Today we were fortunate enough to host a drake Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) at Stratford Point as found by our friend Tom Murray. I took the below photo in the later afternoon during a brief moment when the sun came out from behind the clouds. These additional shots were taken earlier in the morning under those aforementioned clouds while the duck was feeding, swimming, preening, and loving those rocks as the species always does. Harlequin Ducks are a relatively rare visitor for us in Connecticut. If it is anything like the last drake Harlequin (could it be the same bird?) that...
Read MoreDickcissel (Spiza americana)
The highlight of my Sunday birding was this Dickcissel (Spiza americana). My friend, and terrific birder, Tom Murray and I had crippling views of this bird after we spotted it simultaneously among so very many sparrow migrants. It hid on us for about 20 minutes after we first got a quick glance for the initial identification, eventually granting prolonged looks. Persistence pays off! Patience (and sometimes a lot of silence instead of pishing) often helps when you want to a better look a specific individual. This bird of the prairies and grasslands of the Central and Midwestern United States...
Read MoreHarlequin Duck
Come on, this is getting ridiculous – Harley, our drake Harlequin Duck at Stratford Point, looks absolutely stupendous with his nearly completed beautiful blue plumage. The blue water really brings out his tones even more. Please stay with us for the winter, Harley! We think he will be off to find a hen, or at least some other members of his own species, once his molt is complete, but we have our fingers crossed that he has enjoyed his time with us and may consider sticking around. In all seriousness a bird like this is an inspirational one in that it brings in all sorts of non-birders...
Read MoreShorebird Brochures
Here are a couple quick photos of our freshly-printed American Oystercatcher brochures to go along with our Piping Plover brochures! You can spot our logo along with Audubon Connecticut at the top, and were created by our staff as a part of our education and outreach work in the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds. They look wonderful in person, and our staff will soon have some to pass on to you if we see you on the beach in Connecticut. They feature basic biological information on both species including where and when they nest, why they are threatened, how we can help them and what to...
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!
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