Fewer Moose on the Loose

Moose are still active in our 700-acre Richard G. Croft Memorial Preserve, in Goshen, but our conservation biologist, Twan Leenders, confirms what the Connecticut DEEP is saying -- that there seem to be fewer around than in previous years.

"There has been less moose activity in our Croft preserve this past year," Twan wrote in an email, "but they are still there. I saw fresh tracks when I was there last -- just before the holidays."

The Hartford Courant reported that statewide there were a lot fewer moose sightings in 2011 than in 2010:

Andy Labonte, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said moose sightings from 2010 to 2011 dropped by more than half – from 201 to 61. "It's been a quiet year for moose in Connecticut," said LaBonte, a scientist with DEEP's deer and moose program. "Moose prefer colder climates and it just hasn't been that cold."

It's estimated that about 100 moose live in Connecticut, mostly in the northwest corner.

You can read the Courant report here. As for the Croft Preserve, it's an amazing place -- a true wilderness in the middle of thousands of acres of other preserved land -- and well worth a visit, although trails are minimal. Directions to it and all 19 of our sanctuaries are here.

Tom Andersen
Director of Communications and Community Outreach

For Non-Football Fans Only

How's this for savvy communications planning? I will be on BirdCallsRadio at 1 p.m on 1490/WGCH AM on Sunday to talk about conservation in Connecticut and New York, conditions on Long Island Sound, the work Connecticut Audubon is doing, etc.

It's sure to draw a really big audience because nothing else is going on then, right?

Except of course the Giants have a playoff game at 1. Which three-quarters of the homes in the metropolitan area will be watching.

But if you happen to not be a football fan, tune in. You can listen live wherever you are on the planet, here. Afterwards BirdCallsRadio Archive will be available within three days here.

Go Giants!

Meanwhile, in a part of the state where there is no football until the Pats play next weekend, Kasha Breau and Mike Corcoran, of Connecticut Audubon's Center at Glastonbury, will be on WTIC's Garden Talk show, from noon to 2 on Saturday, January 7. WTIC is at 1080 AM. We'll provide a link to the podcast as soon as it's available.

Tom Andersen
Director of Communications and Community Outreach

Town of Stratford bird walks with CAS

Connecticut Audubon Society is a fixture in the town of Stratford, from our presence at Stratford Point, to the Boothe Park Hawk Watch, several bioblitzes, the Great Stratford Bird Festival, and all of our decades of survey work in the McKinney Refuge and other important areas of habitat in town. We are enhancing and expanding our relationship in 2012 with the town of Stratford, one of Connecticut's best birding and most critical bird municipalities, and you can expect more collaborative efforts throughout the year. One of these expansions is joint nature walks with the town's recreation department and our friend David Wright as I will be taking part in many scheduled for this winter, spring, and summer.

Come join Connecticut Master Wildlife Conservationist, David Wright, for informative spring and summer discovery walks, "Exploring Natural Stratford - Forest to Shore". Walk Stratford's shore and trails and see them as you have never seen them before. Walks are free. Get in shape while enjoying the great outdoors. Advanced Registration is requested at the Recreation Department (203) 385-4052 or online at www.townofstratford.com/recreation

Stratford, Natural-ly Nature Walks & Hikes - Winter/Spring/Summer 2012
Walk	Date	Location	Time
Winter Wonderland	1/15	Far Mill River	9-11
Inland Winter Forest Walk	1/29	James Farms Road Open Space	3-5
Birds, Beans & Burgundy	2/12	Shepaug Dam/Vineyard	9-1
Late Winter Marsh Walk	3/11	Great Meadows Marsh at Long Beach Blvd	3-5
Early Migrant Birding Beach Walk	3/25	Long Beach	8-11
Spring Wildflower/Earth Day Walk	4/8	Veterans' Park/James Dillon Park	3-5
Greenway Walk	4/22	Academy Hill/Birdseye Dock/Greenway	8-11
International Migratory Bird Walk	5/6	Roosevelt Forest	8-10
Pequonnock Valley State Park	5/20	Pequonnock Valley/Jones Vineyard	3-5
International Trails Day Walk	6/3	Short Beach to Stratford Point	8-10
Inland Town Park Walk	6/17	Wooster Park	3-5
Housatonic Bridge Walk	7/1	Sikorsky Bridge	8-10
Beginning Birding Walk	7/15	Town Hall/Union Cemetary	8-10
Mid-summer Shore Bird Walk	7/29	Long Beach	3-5
Summer Migrant Birding Marsh Walk	8/12	Great Meadows Marsh at Long Beach Blvd	8-10
Lower Housatonic River Walk	8/26	Dock Parking Lot/Bonds Dock	8-10

It will likely be a relatively (for January) warm and snow-free walk next Sunday. You would be able to expect woodland birds for the most part, with sightings of species you may see at your feeders, some wintering raptors, possibly an uncommon forest interior species like a Pileated Woodpecker or Brown Creeper, and hopefully an insectivore or two hanging around. You never know, it may be a good time to find an American Woodcock or even something more out of season like a Gray Catbird. I hope you will be able to join David and I at some point during the year, especially if one of the walks takes place at a spot you have yet to visit in this amazing town.


Scott Kruitbosch
Conservation Technician

Stratford Point bird walk 1/5 results

It was a cold and cloudy morning at Stratford Point today, with a steady westerly wind keeping all of our visitors bundled up while they scoped out waterfowl. Upland birds were quite quiet, though early in the morning Twan got a brief glimpse of a bird that was likely the Palm Warbler spotted during the Stratford-Milford Christmas Bird Count at nearby Russian Beach.

A couple of visitors saw likely Razorbills far off in Long Island Sound. There was also a Northern Gannet early in the morning. Otherwise, mostly everyone got very good views of birds like Long-tailed Duck, American Wigeon, American Black Duck, Gadwall, Common Goldeneye, Great Cormorant, Sanderling, and Surf Scoter.

 We had good views of both typical loon species - do you know which one this is?

Here's the full list:

Canada Goose
Mute Swan 
Gadwall 
American Wigeon
American Black Duck 
Mallard 
Greater/Lesser Scaup 
Surf Scoter 
White-winged Scoter 
Long-tailed Duck  
Common Goldeneye 
Red-breasted Merganser  
Red-throated Loon
Common Loon 
Northern Gannet 
Great Cormorant 
Sanderling 
Dunlin  
Ring-billed Gull 
Herring Gull (American) 
Great Black-backed Gull 
Rock Pigeon 
Mourning Dove
Carolina Wren 
Northern Mockingbird 
Song Sparrow 
House Sparrow 


This continues to be a somewhat slow winter for uncommon upland birds that can frequent Stratford Point in winter like Eastern Meadowlark and Short-eared Owl. We still have a lack of any snow along with above-average temperatures in much of the region. It was frigid for a short time this week but that will be coming to an end with temperatures nearing 50 this weekend. Some species, like Mallard, American Black Duck, and Canada Goose were clearly moving south as waters to the north froze, but that will not be a problem.

What a strange season...keep an eye out for our February walk date which may come after the prescribed burn of the site.


Scott Kruitbosch
Conservation Technician

The X in eBird

Happy New Year! 2012 has arrived, and with it comes a fresh start to the year lists for birders of all ages and experience, and a new year of entering data into eBird. Since January 2011 I have seen the total checklists and number of regular eBird users jump through the roof in Connecticut. If you are not putting in your bird sightings into the database, well, you may be alone soon!

We get a lot of questions about eBird during bird walks, from visitors, and via email and Twitter. Please feel free to ask for advice and tips, or get help with troubleshooting, whenever possible. For now, I wanted to briefly address something that comes up even with veteran eBird users - the dreaded X. It would be fantastic to not see any of those entered in the new year.

When entering checklists you put in the number of a given species seen. This can be easy, such as spotting two Black-capped Chickadees at your feeders during the half hour you sat down to watch them and count birds. Putting this sort of data in every day with these exact numbers is as valuable as any other. But let's make it a little more complicated and say you came down to the Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center at Milford Point for the day. Maybe you were lucky enough to see a Snowy Owl, whoa! That is an easy count, one bird.

You took a closer look and found some ducks, American Black. You might be able to count them off and come up with 27, or perhaps you noted about 30. That estimate would be fine. Suddenly you see a group of shorebirds go by, Sanderling! There were a whole lot of them, many tens, no - hundreds! You have no idea exactly how many, and who would really know if you saw a group flying by and heading over the Housatonic to Short Beach. So when you go home and enter all of the day's birds into eBird, you will want to check off the species, and many people would do so by using an X instead of a number.

That can be a problem, and it is a relatively easy one I would like to remedy. An X means you might have seen only one Sanderling, and surely that is wrong. It also means you may have spotted 1,487,392 Sanderling - um, I do not think that seems quite right, does it? It can be counterintuitive, but if you are unable to come up with a specific number for a species, or even a close guess to the nearest five or ten, please enter the best number you can. Even if all you could say was that it seemed around 200 birds that would be fine. Maybe the real total was 241 or 173. It is a lot closer than the X is, even if it does not seem like it "making up" a number is better.

While we're on the subject, please try to be exact with your locations, time, and effort, too. Entering data for an entire town has some use, but is much more limited than one list for each of the stops you made each day. Trust me, as someone who enters hundreds or thousands of checklists a year, I know it can get tiring. Keep in mind how much of a contribution you are making to conservation in the state of Connecticut as you are.

Don't forget, if you want to add to those January lists, join us at Stratford Point for a bird walk on Thursday, January 5.


Scott Kruitbosch
Conservation Technician

A Reply to "A Strange Thing Going On in Cheshire"

A couple of days ago we posted a query from a Cheshire resident who was wondering why there were so few birds in her town. Here's the gist of it:  

"Our birds have disappeared. Any bird smaller than a Large Blackbird have all left. At first I thought it was only occurring at my feeder … however a local Vet. called me last week and asked if I had noticed anything different about the birds at my feeders. He also has not seen a single bird for a few weeks."
 
You can read the email here. This morning, Twan Leenders, Connecticut Audubon's conservation biologist, replied to our correspondent. I thought it was worth quoting in full:

I understand your concern and although I cannot give you a definite answer, I suspect that the apparent lack of small birds at your feeders is seasonal and related to the weather patterns we have been experiencing. As you undoubtedly know, most song birds migrate away from our area in the fall, leaving a small contingent behind during the coldest months of the year. To some extent our wintering birds are usually supplemented by birds migrating in from our north when water freezes and snow covers the ground there. The snow and ice effectively make 'wild' food inaccessible to small birds. This is generally when feeders become busy because a steady supply of high quality food will be readily available there.

This winter has been very different than our past few and thusfar much of the land and water to our north is still open. As a result of the easy access to local food, the number of winter migrants moving into the state is greatly reduced this year. Combine this unusual winter weather with a bumper crop of tree seeds and nuts to our north and few birds have had reason to move south yet. I think that it is this combination of factors that has truly left us with a lower number of birds in the state so far this winter. Luckily this is not caused by any local detrimental environmental factor, but rather by the fact that things are fine elsewhere and local birds to our north have not had to embark on a dangerous and strenuous journey south because the conditions there have been just fine still. On the brighter side, if this mild winter holds we could be experiencing a fantastic breeding season in northern birds since they did not have to waste energy on trying to locate food, their populations will likely be larger locally since there is less winter mortality, and the breeding season may start early since all birds are in place already - leaving room for a possible second or third clutch next year.

I was in western New York over the holidays where conditions were also very balmy for their standards with no snow cover (they are already a stunning 70" of snowfall behind on last winter!). There were very few birds on the local feeders until one day a few inches of snow suddenly made the local, wild food supplies unavailable and birds immediately flocked to suet and seed feeders. I'm betting that in the next few days as our temperatures drop, activity at your feeder may pick up a bit. If we get a little snow to cover the ground, you will probably see even more activity. But still keep in mind that until the land to our north is white, we will have fewer birds around than in past winters.

Thank you for your concern over the local bird populations and keep your feeders stocked. There are birds out there and you will see them again if/when conditions are right.

I should add that there seems to have been quite a bit of lake effect snow in upstate New York this week, so maybe northern birds will start to move down toward the coast. -- Tom Andersen

A Strange Thing Going on in Cheshire

We get bird questions emailed to us year-round. Some we can answer easily; others are more baffling. Here’s the first question of 2012. I’ll be passing it along to our experts but if anyone in the greater Connecticut birding world has an answer, please let us know:

Thank you for taking the time to read this: 

I asked UCONN [to] recommend who to contact about a strange thing going on in Cheshire CT.  They suggested I contact you about this strange problem.

Our birds have disappeared.  Any bird smaller than a Large Blackbird have all left.
At first I thought it was only occurring at my feeder … however a local Vet. called me last week and asked if I had noticed anything different about the birds at my feeders. He also has not seen a single bird for a few weeks.

Also noted was that we both observed a significant decrease in Goldfinches. The previous year I would have 40 or more at my feeders at any given time. This year the most I had was 4!

It is eerie to go outside and not hear a single chirp. There is something very wrong going on and I wish to find some answers.

Can you shed some light on this problem?

Unfortunately, I can’t. I’ve got bluebirds and Carolina wrens singing in my yard. But maybe there’s something unusual in Cheshire. Any thoughts? -- Tom Andersen