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 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 MoreKayaking Dogs
This scene is one that has personally appalled me all spring and summer long as hundreds of people have been seen by our staff and volunteers kayaking offshore with their dogs in this apparently growing fad. To each their own, though I do wish more safety precautions were taken here…life jackets are for wearing, you know, and they do no good when you’re already in the water or injured. Regardless, so many people and dogs in kayaks among the sizable and fast boats in Long Island Sound seem to enjoy landing on various beaches and offshore islands in order to stretch their legs, run...
Read MoreOutrageously Outstanding Outreach
The Bridgeport WildLife Guards are rolling along in the 2016 season, and last week I stopped in to visit them for a while on a couple of days. We went for a walk to see some Piping Plovers and Least Terns along their own Pleasure Beach and the connected Long Beach in Stratford, the two parts of the mile-long barrier beach. While Pleasure Beach’s Piping Plover has fledged we still sometimes find a bird or two foraging or flying by. No Least Terns nested there in 2016, but they are currently nesting in nearby areas of Long Beach. Those birds forage all over the general area so visitors...
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