Birders Meet In CT For BwBTC Field Trip

I went to Milford Point on Saturday to meet Birders who Blog Tweet or Chirp for a day of birding. The trip was organized by Dawn, of Dawn's Bloggy Blog and led by Luke of Under Clear Skies. I do most of my birding alone and don't often travel out of state, so this was a nice change from my normal weekend birding routine. We had a lively group with an interesting mix of personalities. I found myself focusing in on the different aspects of birding which appealed to different individuals within the group.


Here are a few of the of birding related topics that I can recall being discussed:

• Birding adventures at a Maine Sporting Camp


• identifying Pine Warblers by their chip notes as they flew across the New york City sky at night.


• Various social gatherings and festivals by birders in various states


• species added to state lists, monthly lists, year lists, and life lists
• how attempting to sketch what you see can be beneficial even if you're no good at it


• differentiating species of birds by their flight patterns & wing beats


• The different species of birds one might find in a backyard birds in Brooklyn


• The excitement of being a new birder rapidly adding to the number of new species seen


• How to make homemade digiscoping adapters


• Proper identification of various species including Boat-tailed Grackles and various terns


• The recent increase in quality of lower end optics


• and of course-blogging, tweeting, and chirping (I'm still not sure what tweeting and chirping is)

By the end of the day I felt a renewed interest in certain aspects of birding that I may avoided for some time. I was also pleased by the number and variety of species we were able to see by the end of the trip. I won't list all of the species which totaled more than 60 but I'll point out a few of my favorite sightings. This photo of a Baltimore Oriole was taken for the observation deck at Milford Point Nature Center. We also saw Glossy Ibises, Black-crowned Night Herons, Purple Martins, and Orchard Orioles here. At other stops we added Brown Thrasher, Salt-marsh Sparrows, Marsh Wrens, Boat-tailed Grackles, and Piping plovers to our lists.

An Osprey flew overhead with the catch of the morning gripped tightly in its talons.

While we were carpooling I mentioned to Luke that it would be nice if I could get my first look at a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. He told me that with any luck we would see one in a few minutes. We were driving along a residential road and there it was-my first Yellow-crowned Night-Heron! I found the markings on the head stood out distinctly as the bird made its way through the tall, pale grass. Another nice sighting for some in the group was seeing a flock of Monk Parakeets and their jumbo-sized nests. I've seen my share of these birds but I haven't gotten used to their lime- green color always catches my attention.

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I started hit the record button but was disappointed when I saw that my memory card full after a few seconds of filming. I had forgotten to delete the old videos which fill up a lot of space. I was able to record a short clip of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron but don't blink or you'll miss it.

After stopping off for lunch, we headed out to Hammonasset State Park. There were plenty of egrets there like the Great Egret above. We were also able to get some glimpses of a Little Blue Egret as it flew by us a couple of times. I enjoyed learning about the differences between the different terns as we carefully searched for a Roseate Tern without success. We were able to find a King Eider which had been reported here recently. This was a lifer for several of us including me. We also had an excellent view of a Surf Scoter that was perched upon a rock. The low angle of the sun and the texture of the rock upon which it stood made the bold markings of the scoter stand out nicely. Some other birds of interest included Least Terns, Common Terns, Double-crested Cormorants, Short-billed Dowitchers, Spotted Sandpipers, and Least Sandpipers .

A cool breeze was coming off the water as we used the last of daylight to take in the final views of the day. After leaving Hammonasset we stopped at Fishtale for some ice cream. It was a nice way to put a finishing touch on what turned out to be a great day of birding and camaraderie.

Thanks to Dawn for organizing the trip and to Luke for leading it. It was a pleasure meeting everyone. Hope to see you next year!

-Here are links to the birders who attended:

Dawn and Jeff from Dawn's Bloggy Blog

Dan from Nature Observances
Dee from Oak and the Seed
Chris from Tails of Birding
Luke from Under Clear Skies
Bev from Behind the Bins and Murmuring Trees
Christopher from Picus blog
Cindy from Living in Brooklyn, Longing for Maine
Laura from Interstitial Spaces
Mark from Strack16
Catherine from Birdspot blog
Paul D-No link yet (but that may change soon)

Holiday Camping & Birds With Attitudes

My wife, Joan, and I camped out at Austin F. Hawes Campground in the American Legion State Forest over the weekend. The forecast called for a chance of rain and thunderstorms. I usually just ignore weather forecasts but I picked up a tarp to protect the tent from rain just in case. My plan was to tie the tarp to surrounding trees in order to form a roof over the tent. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the campground I found out that tying anything to trees was strictly forbidden and it had already started to rain. Now what do I do? Then I remembered that I had brought some old tomato stakes to use as kindling for the fire. I decided to use the stakes as posts to attach the tarp to. It may not be a work of art but it kept us dry for the weekend.

Outside of a few showers, the weather was nice and we had a terrific time together playing cards, listening to music, enjoying the fire-all that fun camping stuff. I didn't attempt to do much birding but some species that caught my attention were Black-throated Green Warblers, singing Brown Creepers, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and a singing Winter Wren.

When did bicyclists lose their fear of automobiles?
I noticed that there were a lot of bicyclists in the area. I like to see people riding bikes. It's a good way to keep in shape and it's much better for the environment than driving a car. One thing seems to have changed over the years though. It use to be that people riding bikes were expected to stay as close to the side of the road as possible in order to avoid being hit by a car. When I used to ride a bike years ago, a driver would lay on his horn if you were too far out towards the middle of the road. Now it seems to be the other way around. I often see groups of bicyclists riding in the middle of the road with seemingly no fear of automobiles. The drivers of the cars are expected to wait until the bicyclists are good and ready to move over before the car is allowed to pass. This is not a major complaint of mine, just an observation.

Pleasant Valley Drive-in Theater-I passed a drive-in theater on my way to the campground and decided to check it out the following day. There used to be numerous drive-in theaters in Connecticut, but now there are only two remaining: The Mansfield Drive-in and Pleasant Valley Drive-in. There was no gate blocking the entrance when I arrived nor was there any do not enter signs. I drove towards the back to get a photo of the screen (during the day). A woman came running out of the concession building with her arm extended and her finger pointing toward the exit. "GET OUT!" she yelled in a powerful, but screechy voice. I tried to explain myself as I started to exit but she cut me off and with a maniacal scream saying "GET OUT-RIGHT NOW!" It reminded me of the scene in the movie Amityville Horror, when the voice of some invisible evil spirit yelled out similar words to the family living in the amity house. I decided to just let this one go as it wasn't worth the effort. In retrospect, I found the whole scene oddly amusing.

After returning home from our camping trip I checked on one of my local patches, Wangunk Meadows in Portland. It seemed that many of the birds here were also telling me to get out. As I passed by a patch of thickets there was a family of Common Yellowthroats yakking at me.

Notice both the female and male yellowthroats have their bills open and you know what their message is-"Get Out"!

Other birds that complained of my presence included Spotted Sandpipers, Yellow Warblers, and an endless supply of Gray Catbirds. I'm not sure if the gray Catbird wanted me to get out too or they were just looking for an excuse to show off their repertoire of nonsensical songs. They do seem to enjoy making noise. A couple of other interesting birds I saw there were an adult Bald Eagle and a Willow Flycatcher. Sort of at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size but they both chase after prey.

I also made a visit to Hammonasset on Sunday morning. One of the first species I saw were Cedar Waxwings. They were acting like flycatchers as they swooped out over the pond to feed on flying insects.

I ran into a couple of birders who had seen a Tri-colored Heron there that morning. I spent an hour searching for it hoping to get my first glimpse of one but didn't have any luck. I took a photo of this Great Egret just because it was there for me to see. The bright sunlight glared off the back of the bird and a green goblin got in my way just as I was taking the photo. I like its pose and the way the feathers are showing on its wings though.

I did manage to see plenty of Glossy Ibises, Willets, and this adult Little Blue Heron. The adults are dark grayish birds and have a grayish bill with a dark tip. The immature birds are white with dark wing tips.

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I captured some video footage of the Little Blue Heron hunting for food. At the very end of the video, a tern plunges into the water. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

Behold The Mighty House Wren

One of the drawbacks of devoting much of the weekend to birding is that you tend to fall behind on certain yardwork. There are a couple of chores in particular that I find especially disagreeable. The first is cleaning my gutters. They get filled up with those little twirly-bird maple seeds that, when saturated in stagnant rain water, makes a particularly nasty organic soup. Another is removing the strangling weeds that wrap their evil vines around the hedges. No matter how cautious I am in approaching this task, I always end up getting a a Poison Ivy rash. It's probably just me. I'm sure for some people this type of yardwork would be their idea of a good time.

This weekend I finally managed to complete these dreaded tasks. As I was working, I noticed the House Wrens were also busy working, singing and gathering food. Somehow, I felt comforted by the fact that I wasn't the only one who had responsibilities to take care of.

These little House Wrens start singing before daybreak and don't stop until after dark. I enjoyed watching them try to fit oversized sticks through the hole in the nestbox. It took them a while to get the hang of it. They are also known to be very aggressive to other birds that try to nest near their territory. They don't have much competition in our yard so that's not really a problem. I found it interesting to read that they add spider eggs to their nests. When the spiders hatch they eat the parasites in the nest and the wrens have an added food source to snack on.

Afterwards, I sat in the shade to watch the birds, butterflies and insects that visited the gardens.

I keep very small gardens so they are easier to maintain. Wrens are supposedly good to have around gardens as they eat some of the insects that might otherwise be damaging to plants. So far, I've sampled some red leaf lettuce and basil. Pretty soon the yellow squash will be ready.

I'm always hearing people talk about honeybees and how important they are. What about bumblebees?

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For the last couple of years there hasn't been many honeybees in our yard (which is kind of concerning). It's the bumblebees that have been doing most of the pollinating.

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Behold the mighty House Wren

as it flies from tree to tree

with a bold and bubbly song

that cries out "Look at me"!

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Finding spiders in the hedges

and ants beneath the brier

the skill with which it gathers food

is something to admire

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He perched upon the nestbox

then sneakily flew in

checking briefly on his family

then its off to work again