It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a CRANE!

You heard it right a crane. And not just a few flying over on their way to other parts of the country but one that's just hanging out here in CT. Reports started coming in a couple of days ago about a Sandhill Crane found in a field. With a chance to see not only a great bird for CT, but a life bird for me, I made the plan to go take a peak.

So, Waking up an extra hour early I quickly made my way north to the field that holds a mysterious calling of the crane. Arriving at 7:15am I met up with some friends who had been in the area still searching for the bird. We continued making rounds of the neighborhood for 45 minutes without ever finding our goal. So, with sad hearts, two of us continued on our way to work. My other friend remained behind to continue looking. Sure enough, 30 minutes after we left the bird had shown up in the field it had been seen in yesterday.

With a shoulder that was not making work an easy thing, I decided to take the afternoon off to rest the shoulder before physical therapy. Why drive south to have to head north later, might as well head norther and then south later. (I know I make up words from time to time). Once again I got in my car and drove to find the crane. I arrived to find 3 other birders there and no bird. I was informed the crane had disappeared into the woods about 20 minutes before. I missed it once again! But with a couple of birders coming and going to socialize with and nowhere to be I decided to hang out and wait.

The payoff for patience was great! Without even having to wait that long, I glanced out of the corner of my eye... THE CRANE! I stayed for another 30 minutes until my cold hand said it was time to leave. Three very nice birders let me use their scopes to take a closer look and also attempt a couple of digibinned picts. Here's Sandy!!



165 driving miles = 1 crane, seems like a good equation to me.

Christmas Counting

(View from the top of the dump in New Haven)

I completely admit to being a slacker with the blogging but not with the birding. I have just finished up all of my planned Christmas Counts, a total of 2 full days and 2 half days. Not to mention we did a little unofficial Christmas bird count here on the grounds at work. I have no idea how many species I saw in total over those 2 weeks but the number is probably north of 100 species. Instead of trying to break down all of the excitement into separate posts, I'll just summarize them all here!

12/19- New Haven Count, We had a group of 10 birders on and off throughout the day. The morning started with owling and calling in about 9 Screech Owls! Then the highlights after day break were; 1 Snow Bunting that we practically stepped on, Greater White-fronted Goose, Snow Goose, and lots of sparrows. All together there wasn't a stand out species but we were lucky enough to get all the ones we always know should be there.

12/27- Stratford-Milford Count, I can't really pull out a species that was extraordinary for the day but the number of American Robins still around was astounding. Also a good day for hawks, Red-tailed, Coopers, and Sharp-shinned with one of our counters seeing a Rough-legged Hawk!

12/30- West Campus unofficial Count- A group of 3 coworkers decided to try birding our 136 acres in Orange/ West Haven. We had 33 species total in the 6 hours of birding. The highlight of this excursion is definitely the Brown Thrasher that was huddled in the Bittersweet tangles.

1/3- Wesport Count, I started out the morning in Westport with a plethora of ducks. A group of 6 Field Sparrows were a treat as well. The best bird of the day for me... the Lesser Black-backed Gull which has apparently been visiting every year for the past 7 years.

1/3- Oxford Count, I took off about lunchtime and headed north to help our single birder doing an entire count area. I never met up but looking over the river I had a total of 27 Common Mergansers!

Yesterday I made a quick swing around Stratford staying in the car as I'm sick :-( I guess I should have gotten out of the car at Long Beach since later posts I've read list a Snowy Owl which would have been a life bird for me! But the best stop was Frash Pond, with Canada Geese, Hooded Mergansers, Bufflehead, Canvasbacks, and a Lesser Scaup swimming in the open areas.

Most of the Old and Some of the New

I had high hopes of spending a good deal of time this past loooong weekend outside, enjoying nature and our little flying friends. Sometimes though life and other loves get in the way and spending time with family, friends, and playing volleyball seemed more important. So, while I have little to report from the weekend, I will report something. I'll also through in a little bit about the weekend before when I conned an old friend into birding with me.

First off I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. After I finished consuming all the bird I could, I took a quick 25 minute walk into the woods behind my parents house. One of the first things I did was stumble across a Red-tailed Hawk who seemed to have already gone to roost for the night. She was very unhappy to have me disturb her and took off yelling the whole way. Of course the poor little squirrel she flew by freaked out for the next 5 minutes.

In the distance was a single woot call (could have even been a dog) but it seemed to get the Northern Flicker pretty upset who then made so much noise he upset his neighbor. A GREAT view of a Pileated Woodpecker! My father had seen it a couple of days before in the yard and it appears the bird has found enough food to hang around for a couple of days. After that the calls of both the Downy Woodpecker and the Red-bellied Woodpecker seemed to fill in the gaps.

The weekend before was a bit more of an adventure. I managed to get my friend Jeff to come out and look for birds with me. We've been participating in the Christmas Bird Counts for the past 12 years together.

First stop, Short Beach: Northern Harrier, Am. Black Duck, Great Blue Heron, Brant, Great Cormorant, Surf Scoter, and White-winged Scoter, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Mute Swan, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, and..... Nashville Warbler. It took us a little time but we finally ID'ed it.

Frash Pond: Bufflehead, Black Duck, Canada Goose, Double-crested Cormorant, and a Canvasback.

A quick stop at the Sea Wall added: Horned Grebe, Red-throated Loon, and we heard a wren.

Last we headed over to the railroad tracks in Lordship to check out the National Wildlife Refuge: Palm Warbler, Red-tailed Hawk, and a couple of sparrows that were probably Song Sparrows.

It was a nice day and thanks to Jeff's scope I got some nice views of some great birds.

falling behind! 15 nov trip

Ok so, I'm a little behind with the blogging so here is a concise account of the trip I took two Sundays ago for a little birding. I started at Wooster Pond where the high light was a few Green-winged Teal.

Then I headed over to Short Beach and took a walk over to Stratford Point. It was an interesting morning after the remnants of the hurricane had blown through.

Here's what I found:
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Black-bellied Plover
Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow
House Finch
American Tree Sparrow (first of the season!)
Double-crested Cormorant
Red-breasted Merganser
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Common Eider- about 100 yards from shore, i could see her meals!
American Kestrel (male)
Song Sparrows

Then I headed over to Long Beach for a really quick walk. There were the usual gulls and a couple of hundred shore birds congregating on the rocks. Light was horrible and fisherman were making then nervous so all I could really see were Sanderlings. I really wish I could have gotten a better look. At least it was a nice day and it was great being outside.

Sunday Birding and the cycle of life

Today I had a couple of interesting finds but before getting into those, here is the path I chose to travel today and the birds I found along the way. (I know it rhymes). I decided to make what is becoming my regular birding sweep of Stratford. Although I lived in West Haven for 9 years a mere 15 minutes from the shore, I never went to go just enjoy the shore. Now having lived in Stratford for only 4+ months, I've spent more time at Long Beach than I ever did in West Haven.

Starting the day I made a quick stop at Wooster Park and Pond, a small local park behind a middle school that I heard of through the Connecticut birding listserv. The pond has a large group of Mallard Ducks and Black Ducks that seem to be happily situated until the waters begin to feeze. There was also a group of Canada Geese that came in. I don't know if it's the way the geese look in the water as opposed to being on dry land but many individuals in this group seem to have fairly short necks and smaller in stature as opposed to others. It's definitely something I'd like to get a more experienced birders opinion on. Also, There was just one pair of Gadwall feeding at the other end of the pond from where I was observing.

Then I made a stop at Short Beach. Ring-billed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Black-backed Gulls, and one Laughing Gull were all hanging out at the beach. A few House Finch were mixed in with House Sparrow feeding in the tall grasses at low tide. One cormorant was feeding in close to shore (I still need to work on the ID's of Great and Double-crested). The other birds of note were 3 White-winged Scoters between Short Beach and Startford Point area.

Finally, I made it over to Long Beach where things got a little interesting. First, here are the birds I saw: Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Black-backed Gull, Great Blue Heron (2), Great Egret, Cormorant (I think Double-crested), House Finch, Savannah Sparrow, Sandpiper sp., Common Loon, Black Ducks (up in the marsh), and three Brant. Here come the interesting finds.


This is a Diamondback Terrapin I found on the marsh side of the beach. I don't know how she (based on size) met her demise but one of the hind feet appear to be missing. Terrapin are our only turtle that lives in brackish water.


And this appears to be a Northern Gannet. I was already carrying around a dead turtle and people were giving me weird looks so I didn't want to flip it over and take any more pictures. They aren't the greatest shots because they were with my cell phone. This wasn't exactly how I wanted to have my first sighting.


If I made a mistake, please leave a comment and let me know!

Walk to Wooster Pond

I took a nice little walk over to Wooster Pond in Stratford today. It was about 1 mile both directions. Wooster pond is a nice little pond behind a middle school. There is easy visibility of the open water in a nice little park-like setting. Diversity on the walk there and back wasn't exceptional but numbers were good with some nice views. Edge habitat along the streets: White-throated sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, House Sparrow, House Finch, and Euro Starlings. Around the pond was a large number of ducks. Gadwall (6), Black Ducks, Mallards, Canada Geese (one was pretty small...), and a mallard/black duck hybrid.

A quick note: I stopped by Southern CT State University this morning and there was a group of 80 Canada Geese on the baseball field with a completely white goose in the middle. I had no binoculars but I'd hazard a guess it was a Snow Goose. When I walked by again an hour later the entire gaggle was gone.

Window Strikes

As I've been spending more and more time outside looking for birds, I've found more and more birds that are hitting windows. Over the last couple of weeks, while bird watching I've had the unfortunate opportunity to get closer to a few birds than I would normally. One morning while checking out a glass walkway, I looked over in a small corner and found a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Initially, I thought the little bird was dead but then noticed it was just dazed. I picked it up and after about 15 minutes it seemed to have recovered enough and flew up into a tree. Here is a picture of the bird (probably young) with my coworker holding it.


The following week I stopped in the same spot and looked over to see a Yellow-crowned Kinglet sitting on the ground looking a little lost. I left it alone for a few minutes while I checked the rest of the windows for casualties. When I approached this bird, it flew up into a small ornamental tree and immediately started yelling at me! No picture this time.

Then this past week, I headed out to do a little bird walking in a courtyard at my building and the first bird I saw was a Hermit Thrush who flew up into a tree. After a couple of minutes I took another step toward the bird (toward the door to go back inside. The bird, although perched above the roof line, quickly took a looping drop away and right into a window, about 15 feet from its perch. This time I took the bird and placed it is a box for about an hour. I took this young bird outside and opened the box and the bird quickly flew up to a nearby tree. The bird sat for a few minutes and when I headed out to check about 20 minutes later, it was gone. Here is a shot while still out of it.


Unfortunately we actually make rounds through this same courtyard to check for kills. There are see-thru hallways on both sides of the courtyard and the number of marks left behind by birds hitting the windows is mind boggling. On one side of one hall there are at least 15 residual marks from Mourning Doves hitting the windows. Last week I took did the first walkthrough after the weekend and here were the casualties from one week.



We are currently looking for options on how to reduce the number of window strikes in the courtyard. We've been discussing films to cover the windows, shiny objects to scare birds away, and possibly netting to protect birds that still fly toward the glass. I have stopped going by the building with the walkway where the Kinglets were found. They both seemed to have been startled by my being there and that caused them flying into the windows. Hopefully, I won't have too many more pictures like these to post.