Bird Migration Film Epic Journeys Will Start 2014-2015 Programs

Shawn Carey

Each year millions of shorebirds make an amazing round-trip journey between the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Join us on September 10 when filmmaker Shawn Carey presents his documentary Epic Journeys which looks at three shorebird species — Red Knot, Piping Plover and Semipalmated Sandpiper—and the challenges these species face during each of their monumental annual treks.

Shawn Carey is a resident of Boston, MA and has been photographing birds and other wildlife for about 20 years. He’s been teaching wildlife photography for Mass Audubon for over 12 years.

Brian Kleinman

Taped entirely in Connecticut, Connecticut Reptiles takes viewers on a video adventure that shows the remarkable variety of the state’s native snakes, turtles, and lizard, and the natural places they inhabit. On October 8, naturalist Brian Kleinman will present his film with incredible insights into each animal’s unique adaptations, lifestyles and place in local landscapes. He will also bring some live reptiles.

On November 12 naturalists and photographers Barbara and Peter Rzasa will present Iceland’s Birds, Flowers and Wildlife, a slide show of several Icelandic flora and fauna that can be found while traveling Iceland’s 832-mile long Ring Road.

Peter Rzasa

Iceland is often called “The Land of Fire and Ice” because of the many volcanoes, glaciers and spectacular waterfalls that populate the country. The country is also a noted birder’s paradise famous for its population of Atlantic puffins, ptarmigan, arctic terns and other arctic birds found along Iceland’s 3,700 miles of coast. Reindeer, arctic fox, humpback whales and seals can frequently be seen while Icelandic horses can be found roaming the farmlands. 

Climate Change is a simple phrase used to describe an incredibly complex issue. Extensive research has identified changes in weather patterns and seasonal temperatures that are affecting ecosystems and communities from our backyards to the entire planet. The effect of climate change on birds could be significant. Saltmarsh sparrows nest just

Patrick Comins

above the high tide line and are already susceptible to spring tides flooding their nests. What would climate change-caused sea level rise mean to the survival of this species? On December 10, Heather Crawford will give us a look at the history of the Earth and human civilization, along with some simple science, so that we can better understand how we have come to our current situation and what kinds of decisions will need to be made as we move forward as stewards of our world.

Heather is an environmental educator who spent 14 years working with the Connecticut Sea Grant Extension Program and presenting programs on coastal ecosystems and land use impacts on water sources. She now chairs the Madison Conservation Commission and does freelance environmental education, including leading ecology field trips for local schools.

(Reprinted from September 2014 Newsletter.)

Bird Migration Film Epic Journeys Will Start 2014-2015 Programs

Each year millions of shorebirds make an amazing round-trip journey between the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Join us on September 10 when filmmaker Shawn Carey presents his documentary Epic Journeys which looks at three shorebird species — Red Knot, Piping Plover and Semipalmated Sandpiper—and the challenges these species face during each of their monumental annual treks.

Shawn Carney

The film asks burning questions: What is being done to help protect these shorebirds and their habitat? How can the public help with their conservation? And where can one go to best see each of these species en-route to their destinations?

Shawn Carey is a resident of Boston, MA and has been photographing birds and other wildlife for about 20 years. He’s been teaching wildlife photography for Mass Audubon for over 12 years.

Taped entirely in Connecticut, Connecticut Reptiles takes viewers on a video adventure that shows the remarkable variety of the state’s native snakes, turtles, and lizard, and the natural places they inhabit. On October 8, naturalist Brian Kleinman will present his film with incredible insights into each animal’s unique adaptations, lifestyles and place in local landscapes. He will also bring some live reptiles.

Brian Kleinman

On November 12 naturalists and photographers Barbara and Peter Rzasa will present Iceland’s Birds, Flowers and Wildlife, a slide show of several Icelandic flora and fauna that can be found while traveling Iceland’s 832-mile long Ring Road.

Peter Rzasa

Iceland is often called “The Land of Fire and Ice” because of the many volcanoes, glaciers and spectacular waterfalls that populate the country. The country is also a noted birder’s paradise famous for its population of Atlantic puffins, ptarmigan, arctic terns and other arctic birds found along Iceland’s 3,700 miles of coast. Reindeer, arctic fox, humpback whales and seals can frequently be seen while Icelandic horses can be found roaming the farmlands.  

Programs run from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford (map).

From the July 2014 Newsletter.

The Atlantic Flyway

Urban Oasis Program

Even tiny patches of woods in urban areas seem to provide adequate food and protection for some species of migrating birds as they fly between wintering and breeding grounds, new research from Ohio State University has found.

The results are important because, with the expansion of cities worldwide, migrating landbirds increasingly must pass through vast urban areas which offer very little of the forest habitats on which many species rely.

Birds in the study seemed to be finding enough food in even the smaller urban habitats to refuel and continue their journey,

The results point to the value of Audubon’s Urban Oasis program and its implementation in New Haven as part of the New Haven Harbor Watershed Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership. The habitat enhancements in Beaver Pond, West River Memorial, Dover Beach, and East Shore Parks and the promise of future native species planting, as well as the plans to assist homeowners in converting yards to wildlife habitat will improve the opportunities of migrating birds to find areas to rest and refuel.

And as one of only four Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnerships, New Haven can serve as a model for other cities along the Atlantic Flyway to create their own urban oases.

(More details in the Ohio State Research can be found at http://goo.gl/kr0Ewy.)

(From the January 2014 newsletter.)

The Atlantic Flyway

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing the rufa red knot (Calidris canutus rufa) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. 

The rufa red knot is an extraordinary bird that each year migrates thousands of miles from the Arctic to the tip of South America and back, but – like many shorebirds – it is vulnerable to climate and other environmental changes,. In some areas, knot populations have declined by about 75 percent since the 1980s, with the steepest declines happening after 2000.

Service biologists determined that the knot meets the definition of threatened, meaning it is likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The knot uses spring and fall stopover areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Changing climate conditions are already affecting the bird’s food supply, the timing of its migration, and its breeding habitat in the Arctic.

A primary factor in the recent decline of the species was reduced food supplies in Delaware Bay due to commercial harvest of horseshoe crabs. In 2012, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted a management plan that explicitly ties horseshoe crab harvest levels along the Atlantic Coast to knot recovery targets.

Audubon has listed the red knot as one of 83 priority species that are the targets of it conservation strategies.

The PBS Nature episode Crash: A Tale of Two Species explores the fragile connection between horseshoe crabs and red knots. Watch it online at goo.gl/LvkKS9.

(From the November, 2013 Newsletter)

Spring Field Trips

Central Park Migrants and Audubon’s Aviary at the New York Historical Society

New York City

Saturday May 4, 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Join Menunkatuck, Naugatuck Valley AS, and Audubon Greenwich at Central Park for a morning walk with “Birding Bob” DeCandido looking for spring migrants. The Park is a major attraction for neotropical migrants, and our walk through the Rambles is sure to feature great views of many warblers as well as tanagers, orioles, and thrushes.

Following lunch, we will go to the New York Historical Society for a guided tour of Audubon watercolors. The trilogy Audubon’s Aviary: The Complete Flock is a once-in-a-lifetime series that will explore the evolution of Audubon’s dazzling watercolors in the order in which they were engraved. Over three years (2013–2015) Audubon’s Aviary will feature all 474 stunning avian watercolors by Audubon in the collection. Engaging state-of-the-art media installations will provide a deeper understanding of the connection between art and nature.

We will be taking the Metro North 6:53 a.m. train from New Haven, arrive at Grand Central at 8:44, and take a bus or the subway to Central Park, arriving around 9:30. We will bird for about three hours, have lunch at the Boathouse, and then go to the NYHS. The return time to New Haven is open. Cost for the trip is $10 for the bird walk plus train fare, lunch, admission to the NYHS, and any other personal expenses.

Pre-registration is required. To register for this trip, please email nina@menunkatuck.org or visit the Field Trips registration form on the calendar page of our website at www.menunkatuck.org/index.php/calendar1/ 

Birdathon

Various Locations

Saturday, May 11,

6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Join us at Sandy Point in West Haven for beach nesting birds and gulls and terns, East Rock Park in New Haven and the Supply Ponds in Branford for migrating warblers and other neotropical birds, at Hammonasset Beach State Park for more migrants and water birds, and at other local birding spots for our annual all-day birding extravaganza.

The last few years we’ve averaged between 100 and 120 species during Birdathon. Join us for the entire day or at as many hot spots as suits your schedule.

Approximate Schedule

Sandy Point, 6:00 a.m.

East Rock Park, 8:00 a.m.

Supply Ponds, 11:00 a.m.

Shoreline drive, 2:00 p.m.

Hammonasset, 5:00 p.m.

Nature Walk at Lake Hammonasset

Killingworth

Saturday June 22, 10 a.m. - noon

John naturalist John Himmelman on a walk exploring a little-known RWA trail system on the border of Killingworth and Madison. We’ll pass through several habitats, including a small sand plain, as we search for birds, bugs, plants, herps, and other critters. Something interesting always pops up!

Please note that this walk is on Regional Water Authority property, and is accessible by permit only.  Menunkatuck Audubon Society has a permit for the walk.  Dogs are not allowed on RWA property.

Email jhimmel@comcast.net if you have any questions.

Pre-registration is required. To register for this trip, please email nina@menunkatuck.org, visit the Field Trips registration form on the calendar page of our website at www.menunkatuck.org/index.php/calendar1/. Directions to  the walk site will be provided when you register.

(From the May 2013 newsletter)

Audubon AFI

The Atlantic Flyway Initiative (AFI) lets nature serve as our guide. By following birds’ migratory paths we are letting them help us identify the places so important not just to their survival, but to all our lives. Audubon is then leveraging one of its strongest assets – its vast, grassroots network of people and conservation capability to power conservation on a hemispheric scale. It will succeed because it clearly focuses its conservation priorities around bird habitats within three distinct and prioritized habitats: forests, coastlines and saltmarshes. Birds, those environmental sentinels, will be the lens through which we gauge conservation threats and successes. By expanding and linking Audubon’s string of Important Bird Area pearls, the program will create an architecture for hemispheric conservation.

Marine Conservation E-Atlas Launched

BirdLife International has launched the first global inventory of important sites for the conservation of migratory  marine species. The new e-Atlas covers 3,000 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) worldwide. It is the result of six years of effort that, to date, has involved the world’s leading seabird scientists in collaboration with government departments of conservation, environment and fisheries, and the secretariats of several international bird conservation conventions. The e-Atlas provides essential information for conservation practitioners and policy makers; for energy sector planners (windfarms, gas and oil exploration and drilling); for fisheries managers; for marine pollution management planners; and for the insurance industry. Like a Google Map, the e-Atlas will be dynamically updated as new sites are identified and new data about them become available. It will be linked to other BirdLife data resources, including BirdLife’s species accounts, IBA fact sheets and State of the World’s Birds case studies. Experience the IBA e-Atlas at www.birdlife.org/datazone/marine. News release about the Marine IBA e-Atlas: http://chapterservices.audubon.org/news-announcements#marine

Citizen Science: Neotropical Migrant Survey

USFWS

Once again Audubon Connecticut is seeking citizen scientists (volunteer birdwatchers) to participate in surveys of Neotropical migrant songbirds during fall migration, one morning per week from August 20 through October 20, 2012. Volunteers should have strong bird identification skills and at least a basic ability to identify common plants. Our priority sites for the surveys are coastal sites from Greenwich to New London as well as sites in the greater Hartford area, but people interested in conducting the surveys at other sites in Connecticut are welcome to participate as well. To volunteer or for more information, contact Lori Mott at zoogirl527@gmail.com.

The songbird surveys are part of Audubon’s new Habitat Oases for Migrating Songbirds program, which seeks to identify, improve and conserve important stop-over habitat for migrating songbirds all along the Atlantic migratory flyway, focusing on urban areas and other landscapes where there is limited quality habitat.

The program, performed in collaboration with Audubon chapters, botanical gardens, state and municipal parks departments, and other groups, engages citizen scientists in migratory songbird surveys of urban green spaces and rural forest remnants. The surveys help us to determine the characteristics of high quality stop-over habitat and which species of plants are most beneficial as food sources for migrating songbirds. Audubon and its partners are using the results of this study to:  

• Promote the protection of critical stop-over habitats by helping government agencies, corporations, land trusts, and other landowners make informed land use and land protection decisions
• Improve the quality of public and private lands as stop-over habitat for migrating birds by guiding the management and landscaping practices of natural resource managers, private landowners and professional landscapers
• Develop regionally-specific lists of “bird-friendly” native plants that may be used to guide landscaping practices in parks, gardens and backyards.

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

Native Plants Support Native Insects; Native Insects Help Sustain Bird Populations

Most of us are aware that many birds are fond of the fruits and berries found on non-native plants as well as natives. 

One of the ways non-native plants spread and become invasive is through the guts of birds. Birds act as seed dispersers moving from one location to another taking invasive plants with them from your backyard to another backyard and often, into wild spaces.

Non-native plants ultimately cannot sustain bird populations because they do not support native insects. Native plants act as host plants and nectar sources for an insect’s entire life cycle, from larvae to adult. 

Native insects have evolved such that in their larval form they feed on a small number of plants and do not see non-native plants as food. For example, native plant expert Doug Tallamy writes that while the Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa), a species from China, supports no insect herbivores in North America, our native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) supports 117 species of moths and butterflies! Oaks are hosts to an astonishing 532 species of caterpillars. 

Blueberry plants, such as this lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium - myrtilloides) support 288 species of Lepidoptera.

Photo: www.hort.uconn.edu/plants

Many invasive insects thrive here because birds do not recognize them as food. Perhaps you’ve heard of the gypsy moths that are destroying our hardwood forests or experienced hemlock woolly adelgid in your own backyard. Birds seek out indigenous insect species.

Spring azures are one type of Lepidoptera for which blueberry is a host. 

Photo: en.wikipedia.org/

Healthy insect populations are vital for birds during spring migration. During nesting season 96% of songbirds feed their young on insect protein.

During spring migration black-and-white warblers can be seen crawling up and down tree branches foraging for insects in bark crevices. Photo: education.eol.org

It starts with native plants. NATIVE plants + NATIVE insects = healthier bird populations.

Menunkatuck’s Native Plant Sale for the Birds offers trees and shrubs that will host native insects and feed birds. Please visit our website for ordering information. 

(From the March 2012 Newsletter)