Piping Plovers in the Sand
This warm week has jump started breeding as Piping Plover pairs are getting much more focused on nesting, making scrapes and exhibiting soon to be parents behavior on some Connecticut beaches. Our Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds crew is wrapping up helping the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in placing string/psychological fencing and signage on major beaches and busy breeding areas. We will soon be assisting them in placing exclosures over Piping Plover nests to protect the precious eggs from predators on the ground (cats, raccoons, foxes and coyotes)...
Read MoreSlow Piping Plovers
This year has been rather cold – talk about news you did not need to know, huh? Even though temperatures have been much closer to average in recent days there is still not a lot of action on the breeding birds front, with these distant looks at Piping Plovers feeding in the middle of a marsh on a chilly, windy morning yesterday showing they are not nesting yet. Nights with lows near freezing will keep eggs at bay for the moment, but we at the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds continue to be extremely busy putting up fencing and signage, reporting migrants, recording pairs and...
Read MoreFind 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 MorePiping Plover Record Setting Success
It is our tremendous pleasure to announce that in 2014 we helped the Connecticut population of Piping Plovers set an all-time record for the number of successfully fledged chicks at 116! Born from 51 pairs across Connecticut these young birds shattered the old state record of 101 fledged young in 2008. This is an astonishing success due to the efforts of over 400 volunteers across Connecticut and multiple partners including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (CT DEEP), and the Audubon Alliance for...
Read MoreAudubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds thanks volunteers
On Monday evening, September 15, the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds held a thank you party for all of the tremendous volunteers who helped us conduct surveys, monitoring, stewardship, education and outreach across Connecticut in 2014. We thank the Town of Stratford and the Stratford Conservation Commission for allowing us to use the pavilion at Short Beach Park in Stratford. There have been at least 2,200 hours logged by over 379 volunteers in the AAfCW program this year. We have seen 51 species of shorebirds, terns and long-legged waders at nearly 200 important sites in the state....
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