Purple Martin Banding at Hammonasset Beach State Park

Geoff Krukar, avian researcher with DEEP, was at Hammonasset Beach State Park banding this year's purple martin chicks. Each bird is banded with a Federal numbered band on one leg and with a colored State band on the other leg. Geoff explains the banding protocol in this video by Jim Murtagh.

Purple martins and tree swallows have another year of successful breeding

Stringent monitoring of the purple martin and tree swallow nest boxes at Hammonasset Beach State Park continue to pay dividends with the number of young birds fledging increasing once again.

For the first year all 31 tree swallow boxes were occupied with swallow pairs producing eggs. After five years of increases the number of fledglings fell slightly last summer. This year there was a 27% increase over last, with 151 tree swallows fledging.

Top line - number of laid
Bottom line - number of fledglings

Purple martins were just as successful. For the fifth straight year, the number of nesting pairs, eggs laid, and fledglings increased. Forty-four of the 48 compartments in the four martin houses were occupied, an astonishing 230 eggs were laid, and the adult martins were able to successfully raise 180 fledglings.

Top line - number of laid
Bottom line - number of fledglings

Again this year DEEP wildlife biologists spent one July morning banding the young purple martins. Using silver Federal numbered bands and colony-specific colored bands, one hundred fifty-seven young were weighed, aged, and banded. Twenty other martins were either too young or too old for banding.

Derrick Hendy (third from left), Assistant Warden at the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, participated in the DEEP banding. He spent two months at Audubon Sharon learning banding, bird census, and other monitoring techniques to be used in his staff position with Belize Audubon. The training program is part of Audubon’s International Alliances Program.
More photos of the banding.

John Picard, Menunkatuck Vice-president and Conservation Chair, is responsible for the increase in fledgling success rates. He keeps the nest boxes closed until a number of tree swallows and purple martins have arrived from their winter homes. Neither bird begins nesting when they arrive, sometimes waiting a week or longer. When the birds start to show nesting behavior John opens the nest boxes. He continues to monitor them during nest building and evicts any house sparrows that might try to compete with the swallows and martins. After the birds have laid eggs, John still monitors the boxes – house sparrows can continue to be a problem. The results of John’s persistent monitoring are evident.

With the increased number of purple martins nesting at Hammonasset, Menunkatuck plans to install a fifth purple martin house at the Chase (Swan) Pond colony in Spring, 2013, in time for next year’s breeding season.

Menunkatuck has received two grants for kestrel restoration in Connecticut.

Menunkatuck has received two grants for kestrel restoration in Connecticut.

Audubon Connecticut Grant is for $1550

Audubon Connecticut awarded us $1550 for kestrel next boxes and baffles for the mounting poles. We’ve partnered with Tom Sayers and the Northeast Connecticut Kestrel Project on his project to rebuild the nesting population of American kestrels in Connecticut.

Tom’s 55 kestrel boxes are not protected from climbing predators. This Audubon grant will provide for raccoon baffles for the boxes. Additionally, ten new kestrel boxes will be built and installed in the Menunkatuck Chapter area. The grant will be matched with funds from the generous contributions of our members. 

The American kestrel, a robin-sized falcon, was listed as “threatened on Connecticut's Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern Species List in 2004, primarily due to a lack of information, coupled with a perceived decline in nesting and migrating numbers and diminishing habitat.” (CT DEEP)

About five years ago, Tom Sayers created the Northeast Connecticut Kestrel Project (NECKP) nest box program in northeastern Connecticut. The research shows that the single greatest factor in helping improve kestrel numbers are well run nest box projects tailored specifically for this species.

EPOC Awards $3960

The Environmental Professionals’ Organization of Connecticut (EPOC) awarded us $3960 for radio tracking Tom’s kestrels.

At approximately 15 days old, all young birds are banded with federal metal leg bands which they wear for life. If those birds are recovered on either their northern breeding grounds or southern wintering grounds (through netting programs, found dead, etc.) their bands can be traced back to the original banding site, yielding very important data about their movements throughout the year. 

But leg band recovery rates are typically only 1-2%, yielding very small data sets. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has shown a great deal of interest in Tom’s work, but the limited data from the project to date has only been marginally useful in helping direct their efforts towards better land management practices for this species throughout the state.

Tom is determined to improve the quality and quantity of data which his program is generating to help improve management practices aimed at helping this species. Currently, it is not known where the young birds immediately disperse to or how far they go while still in Connecticut or if the birds returning to the boxes in the spring are the same adults from the previous year, other adults new to the area, or previously fledged young birds from that box or some other box in the study area. 

Radio telemetry can provide the answers to these questions and a myriad of others. Basically, the young birds are fitted with transmitters which are then monitored by following them in the study area, and beyond, with a handheld receiver. Getting accurate data on their post-breeding dispersal patterns and site fidelity (which birds are actually occupying the boxes the next spring) is immensely important when making management decisions about land use, the direction, literally and figuratively, that expanded nest box projects should take, and where new nest box projects should be established.

In addition, there are two other university and grant-funded kestrel researchers on the east coast who will be starting up their first ever radio telemetry work with kestrels in the upcoming season to help answer exactly the same research questions referred to earlier. Hawk Mountain, a nationally renowned raptor research center in Pennsylvania, has asked Connecticut to coordinate telemetry work with them as they move forward with their inaugural telemetry work in the upcoming season. To be able to compare/analyze telemetry data sets from three different east coast projects would allow researchers to make great strides in answering some of the questions that need to be answered for more effective conservation and management decisions regarding this threatened species.

The EPOC grant will provide for the purchase of 20 light-weight radio transmitters that will be fixed on the birds’ backs. Using telemetry equipment (antennas and receivers), Tom and DEEP and university researchers will be able to track the movement of the kestrels both in Connecticut and as they migrate.

Audubon Connecticut—an operating unit of the National Audubon Society—is one of Connecticut's premier conservation and environmental education organizations. Its top-notch staff of seasoned professionals works hard to carry out the Audubon mission within the state—protecting birds, other wildlife and their habitats through education, research, advocacy and land protection.

EPOC represent the interests of Connecticut's Licensed Environmental Professionals (LEPs) by providing information, training and updates regarding the LEP program in Connecticut. EPOC welcomes the participation of all members in our activities and recognizes the strength of drawing on a membership of diverse careers, interests and backgrounds.

The EPOC Grant Program provides non-profit and not-for-profit environmental advocacy groups, community based groups and environmental education organizations, funding for local projects that benefit the environment on an annual basis. This year they awarded a total of $9020.

Photos: Tom Sayers

Osprey Chicks Banded at Hammonasset

John Picard describes banding six osprey chicks at Hammonasset:

When Julie Victoria, Wildlife Biologist, CT DEP Wildlife Division, asked who would like to hold the first osprey chick for banding, Ed Localio didn’t hesitate even for a moment. He took two steps forward and held out his hands. And why wouldn’t he. Ed had been looking forward to this moment for months. Nearly every day since March 7, he had been monitoring the four new osprey platforms at Hammonasset Beach State Park and reporting his findings back to the Meigs Point Nature Center. 

9am: 2 osprey sitting on platform #1, one is eating a fish, looks like a flounder

10:15am: 3 osprey are flying around platform #2, not sure what is happening here, maybe a love triangle...?

Despite the ability to easily see adult osprey when they are on the platforms, it is difficult to assess from a distance how many chicks there are until they are old enough to stand up and make their presence known. Most often they stay hunkered down and try to blend in with the nest material to avoid calling attention to themselves.

So, on the morning of July 10 when Julie and Ed, accompanied by Menunkatuck Board member Shannon Scheisser, Menunkatuck Friend and volunteer Cate Nyary and I struck out into the salt marsh with a pocket full of aluminum bands and a ladder we were in eager anticipation of what we would find. The goal was to return with an empty pocket a muddy ladder and memories to last a lifetime.

Platform #1, located on Meigs Point, contained one chick which was nearly large enough to fly. Julie stated that this one could probably fly if it tried to but she wasn’t going to offer this information to the chick. Ed had his hands full with this bird. 

Platform #2, located to the east of the entrance road, midway between the entrance gate and the rotary, held three osprey chicks. All three were much smaller than the chick on Platform #1. However, they all appeared to be in good health and were just as surprised to see us as we were of them. Providing food for three chicks is a demanding task which would explain why there was a freshly caught flounder tucked in the corner of the nest, possibly set aside for a late lunch. There was also an added bonus of a barn swallow nest with four young birds in it, neatly tucked into the supporting members immediately below the platform and just above the predator baffle. The clever swallows had found a place to build a nest that would not only stay dry but is raccoon proof!

Platform #3, located behind the Camp Store, had two more osprey chicks. These two birds were sharing their nest not with a flounder, but with a assortment of braided rope, ribbons, fishing line and deflated balloons. Osprey have a habit of picking up trash to place in their nest and the results can be disastrous as the birds can sometimes become hopelessly entangled. This is yet another reason to remember to dispose of fishing line, kite string, balloons…responsibly. (In the Fall, after the osprey have fledged, we will once again visit the platforms to remove any and all trash that remains in the nest.) 

Platform #4, located near the Meigs Point Nature Center, was installed on June 13, too late for osprey nesting activity for this year. The osprey have been using this platform to perch, preen and eat their fish along with the willets that seem to like taking advantage of the platform as well. We are confident that this platform will be used by the osprey next year. Ed will be sure to keep us updated.