Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus)
I took these Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) photos last Friday evening after the opening of Stratford Point’s new water garden while the butterfly was being battered by gusty winds off the water. It was appropriately trying to feed in the garden itself but the seabreeze pushed it around to the other side of the building and some of the other gardens a little more out of the wind. Catching a drink while you’re being tossed about by those big sails is not easy, and it ended up fluttering to keep itself steady in the wind at times. The species is a daily sighting now among...
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...
Read MoreGadwall Sunset
I photographed this spectacular sunset last week at Stratford Point while attempting to give it a number of different looks by changing lenses and positioning. A friendly Gadwall felt a little less friendly once it saw me approaching the water, but you can still see the duck behind the spartina in the first photo. That spartina is slowly regenerating and growing in to the intertidal zone, helping to protect and preserve the low energy side of the site from tidal and wave action. There are still plenty of pools for long-legged waders to feed in on small fish like sand lance, and there are...
Read MoreWildLife Guards Learning & Educating
The Bridgeport WildLife Guards are both learning and educating at Pleasure Beach! RTPI and Audubon Connecticut trained staff members teach these high school students each day, and they in turn help to educate dozens of daily visitors about the rare and endangered plants and animals that surround them along this stunning shoreline. We are teaching the teachers of the next generation about science and conservation, and as you can see below, they are engaging in creative ways to reach people – especially children. I spent some time with the WildLife Guards last Saturday and observed their...
Read MoreWildLife Guards Monitoring
What a week. All of us have been extremely busy and it will continue tomorrow and Sunday and…well, every day this summer. Here are a couple photos of the Bridgeport WildLife Guards in action yesterday as they monitored the Piping Plover pair with one chick at Pleasure Beach. ‘ They also recorded all the other bird species that they saw on the shoreline while learning more about our avian neighbors. The Guards noted the chick flying today and classified it as finally having fledged officially – woo! Now they will have the opportunity to see how long each of the parents...
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