Rusty Blackbird Pair
Here is a Throwback Thursday to a Rusty Blackbird male and female in the winter snow looking for food at a bird feeder after a storm. The male is the darker individual and the female is the lighter bird. Please remember that no matter where you live it is absolutely vital to enter any Rusty Blackbirds you see into eBird, especially during the 2015 Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz! See more information on how you can help save the species here on our website.
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 MoreNorthern Harrier January sightings
What is wrong with this January eBird map of Northern Harrier sightings? It certainly seems to be very well correlated to human population. Nevertheless I definitely believe there are more birds out there that are not being entered into eBird. My friends in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region know we at RTPI are surveying for Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls this winter for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, with Chautauqua County being our target area. While some neighboring areas, such as Allegheny National Forest, have no sightings as expected, I would have to...
Read MoreJanuary Snowy Owl Update
This blog entry is a companion to the Winter Bird Forecasts brought to you by Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. Be sure to check out Winter Bird Forecast #3! As we enter the New Year we in the Mid-Atlantic and New England have been feeling mostly below-average temperatures as the weather finally reflects the climate more than it has. Snow cover is certainly starting to shape up over the landscape and birds like the Snowy Owl are now camouflaged against our earth and skies. I wanted to see where we were in this winter’s Snowy Owl irruption,...
Read MoreRusty Blackbird Blitz 2015 – Areas of Interest
As a follow up to this recent blog entry here is an important link to the Areas of Interest for the Rusty Blackbird Spring Migration Blitz 2015. These locations had large flocks of Rusty Blackbirds present during the 2014 spring migration and should definitely be monitored in 2015. Undoubtedly there will be more areas added thanks to new discoveries by citizen scientists in 2015, but this provides a great road map and a way to be sure we check out the best hotspots this spring. At the very least it serves as a way to find Rusty Blackbirds near you.
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