Menunkatuck’s Been Getting Ready for Spring with Cleanups and New Nest Boxes

Ospreys like to decorate their nests with colorful trash, including balloons, plastic bags, rope, fishing line, and the like. To lessen the possibility or them getting entangled, the nests at Hammonasset Beach State Park were cleaned out while the birds were wintering in South America.

A new purple martin house was installed at Hammonasset to accommodate the increasing numbers of matins in the colonies. The houses at the Nature Center were moved closer to the marsh in preparation for the new Nature Center building.

With all 31 tree swallow nest boxes at Hammonasset used last year and tree swallows trying to nest in the purple martin house at the Guilford Salt Meadow Sanctuary, we installed 14 new boxes at Hammonasset and nine at the Sanctuary. The boxes use John Picard’s starling-proof design with a top slit instead of a traditional hole.

(From the May, 2014 newsletter.)

Tree Swallow, Purple Martin Egg Laying Is Up at Hammonasset, Fledging Is Down

Top line - Number of eggs laid; bottom - Number fledged

Bad weather just as Hammonasset’s tree swallow and purple martin chicks were about to fledge resulted in the deaths of many of the young birds. As a result the number of nest box success rate was down for the summer.

Of 183 tree swallow eggs that were laid, 143 hatched and 114 young fledged.

The Bridgeport Wildlife Guards, a team of students learning and teaching about conservation in Bridgeport, CT, came to Hammonasset to learn about nest box monitoring. They were able to see the difference between the purple martins’ bayberry leaf-lined nest and the tree swallows’ feather-lined nest.

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The Bridgeport Wildlife Guards, a team of students learning and teaching about conservation in Bridgeport, CT, came to Hammonasset to learn about nest box monitoring. They were able to see the difference between the purple martins’ bayberry leaf-lined nest and the tree swallows’ feather-lined nest.

(From the November, 2013 Newsletter)

Menunkatuck Uses Solar-powered Sound Systems to Attract Purple Martins, Chimney Swifts

Menunkatuck Audubon Society installed a solar-powered sound system at the Guilford Salt Meadows Sanctuary to attract purple martins to establish a new colony. A second system was installed at Hammonasset Beach State Park to attract chimney swifts to nest in the artificial chimney at the shorebird pool bird blind.

At the Sanctuary the purple martin house has had fly-over martins every spring, but none have nested. Again, there have been fly-overs of chimney swifts, but no nesting.

Solar-powered sound system at the Guilford Salt Meadows Sanctuary.

According to the Purple Martin Conservation Association, “The Dawnsong has proven to be one of the most powerful tools used today to attract martins to a new site. It is the recording of ASY (after second year), or adult black male martins singing a song in the predawn hours that is used to lure subadult martins (those that were raised last year) to their colony site. Anyone that uses this tape can tell you that IT WORKS.” Research by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Department of Natural Resources in Minnesota shows that playing recordings of Chimney Swift vocalizations results in swifts investigating artificial chimneys. 

An ASY purple martin (left) perches next to a decoy as it investigated the apartment.

The challenge with using sound recording at both the Sanctuary and at Hammonasset is that there is no access to a source of electricity. The solution is to use a solar-powered sound system. A suitable sound system is used by Audubon’s Project Puffin in Maine and by other seabird restoration projects that are typically located on isolated islands with no electricity. Murremaid Music Boxes builds custom sound systems for attracting birds throughout the world.

The solar panel for the chimney swift tower sound system is mounted on the roof of the bird blind.

Funds for the two sound systems came from an Audubon Collaborative Grant, a mini-grant from the Connecticut Ornithological Society, and matching funds from our members’ donations.

The Sanctuary sound system has attracted purple martins to investigate the apartments, however as of June 26, there are none nesting. The system at Hammonasset was installed late in the migration season and has not attracted any swifts. It will be used again during fall migration when swifts roost communally. Research indicates that swifts will use fall roost sites for nesting.

Further developments will be reported in the newsletter.

(From the July 2013 newsletter)

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