Winter Field Trips

Livingston Ripley Waterfowl

Conservancy, Litchfield, CT

Sunday, November 20, 1:00-4:00 p.m.

LRWC Photo

Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy, located in Litchfield, Connecticut, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the research and protection of rare and endangered ducks and other waterfowl  throughout the world. The organization maintains an aviary with a diverse collection of waterfowl from around the world for educational and research purposes.  

Join Menunkatuck Audubon Society for a tour of LRWC’s aviaries, and experience a unique opportunity to view and learn about waterfowl from around the world.  Please dress warmly and be prepared to spend up to two hours outside during the tour.  Boots or other waterproof shoes are recommended in case of muddy conditions at the facility.

Pre-registration is required, and a $10 per person donation to LRWC is requested.  To register for this trip, please contact Nina Levenduski e-mailing nina@menunkatuck.org. Carpools from the shoreline area may be set up, inquire with the leader if interested. 

Winter Birdwatching at Sandy Point and New Haven Harbor

Saturday, December 3, 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.

USFWS

Sandy Point in West Haven is recognized by Audubon Connecticut as an Important Bird Area (IBA), and a great place to see wintering shorebirds, ducks and other waterfowl.  Join Nina Levenduski and other Menunkatuck birders for a walk on the beaches to look for wintering birds. Beginning birders welcome! Please bring binoculars and dress in layers for cold and windy conditions. Camera, hand lens, field guides, etc. are also suggested.

Optional lunch stop after the walk at a local burger/seafood joint.

Meet at the parking area at the junction of Beach Street and Second Avenue in West Haven.

To sign up for the trip, please contact Nina Levenduski by e-mailing nina@menunkatuck.org. Bad weather the day of the trip cancels.

(From November, 2011 Newsletter)

Film Screenings: Green Fire, Tapped, Living Downstream, and Ghost Bird at Peabody Museum and Blackstone Library

Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time

Saturday, November 12, 1:00-3:30 p.m.

Yale Peabody Museum, New Haven

Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time is the first feature length documentary film ever made about famed conservationist Aldo Leopold. The film explores Aldo Leopold’s life in the early part of the twentieth century and the many ways his land ethic idea continues to be applied all over the world today. 

The film shares highlights from Leopold’s life and extraordinary career, explaining how he shaped conservation in the twentieth century and still inspires people today. Although probably best known as the author of the conservation classic A Sand County Almanac, Leopold is also renowned for his work as an educator, philosopher, forester, ecologist, and wilderness advocate.

Green Fire illustrates Leopold’s continuing influence by exploring current projects that connect people and land at the local level. The film portrays how Leopold’s vision of a community that cares about both people and land—his call for a land ethic—ties all of these modern conservation stories together and offers inspiration and insight for the future.

This film screening is part of the Quinnipiac River Watershed project.

Tapped

Sunday, November 27, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford

Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig’s debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water.

Tapped is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water.

From the plastic production to the ocean in which so many of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table. This film is cosponsored by Audubon Connecticut.

Living Downstream

Friday, December 9, 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Yale Peabody Museum, New Haven

Living Downstream is an eloquent feature length documentary that charts the life and work of biologist, author, cancer survivor and cancer prevention advocate, Sandra Steingraber. 

Living Downstream is based on Sandra’s book of the same name, and, like the book, documents the growing body of scientific evidence that links human health with the health of our environment. 

This film screening is part of the Quinnipiac River Watershed project.

Ghost Bird

Sunday, December 18, 2:00-3:30 p.m.

Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford

Set in a murky swamp overrun with birders, scientists, and reporters, Ghost Bird explores the limits of certainty, the seductive power of hope, and how one phantom woodpecker changed a sleepy Southern town forever.

In 2005, scientists announced that the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a species thought to be extinct for 60 years, had been found in the swamps of Eastern Arkansas. Millions of dollars poured in from the government while ornithologists and birders flooded the swamps to find the rare bird. Down the road, the town of Brinkley, Arkansas - itself on the brink of extinction – was transformed by the hope, commerce, and controversy surrounding their feathered friend. Now six years later, the woodpecker remains as elusive as ever. Ghost Bird brings the Ivory-bill’s blurry rediscovery into focus revealing our uneasy relationship with nature and the increasing uncertainty of our place within it.

This film is cosponsored by Audubon Connecticut.

(From the November, 2011 Newsletter)

Citizen Science: Project Squirrel

No matter where you live, city or suburb, from the Midwest to the East Coast, Canada to California, whether squirrels live in your neighborhood or not, you are encouraged to become a squirrel monitor.

Squirrels are useful organisms to study because they are active during the day and everyone has an opinion about them. Additionally, squirrels can be important indicators of local ecology because they are resident in small territories and active year round, they require a range of resources that are also important to many other urban animals, and their populations rise and fall with the same predators and environmental conditions that affect our neighborhood wildlife.

What to do:  Take a look around your home, office, school, or anywhere you are and, whether you see squirrels or not, visit projectsquirrel.org/ and click on the green button to submit your observations.  We want to know where squirrels are as well as where they aren’t.

How often:  You can submit as many observations from as many places as you like.  It’s most effective to submit at least one observation per site per season but the more observations the better.

Who:  Anyone of any age can participate.  Make it an office game or a classroom project, compare notes with friends in other states, get your family involved—everyone can observe nature.

For complete details, visit projectsquirrel.org/.
(From the November, 2011 Newsletter)

Quinnipiac River Watershed Is Focus of Project to Improve Water Quality

http://qrwgis.newhaven.edu/watershe.htm

Menunkatuck Audubon Society has partnered with Audubon Connecticut, Yale Peabody Museum, and other local environmental organizations on a project to raise awareness among legislators, homeowners, and the general public about ways to reduce both non-point and point sources of pollution and to improve habitat for birds and other wildlife within the Quinnipiac River Watershed. Improving Water Quality and Wildlife Habitat in the Quinnipiac River Watershed will promote legislative, municipal, corporate and personal actions to improve water quality and habitat for wildlife in the QRW through a combination of (1) legislative forums in New Haven and Wallingford, (2) a film series coupled with panel discussions to be held at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, and at venues in Wallingford and Meriden, and (3) outreach materials to be displayed and disseminated at a wide range of venues.

Funded by a grant from the Quinnipiac River Fund to Audubon Connecticut, the project will address the need to reduce non-point and point sources of pollution and to improve habitat for wildlife by providing people with the tools, resources, and motivation to take on actions that can make our homes, schools, businesses, and municipal spaces in the Quinnipiac River Watershed healthy and vibrant while also providing sustainable habitats for birds and other wildlife. Improving habitat for wildlife also improves natural infrastructure for reducing non point source pollution.

The project is part of the Audubon At Home in Connecticut program of Audubon Connecticut, part of the larger National Audubon Society’s mission. The goal of the AAH program in Connecticut is to inspire people to incorporate conservation actions into their daily lives by providing the support and resources necessary to do so, in order to conserve birds, wildlife, and habitat. AAH educates the public on water conservation and water quality issues, encourages reduction of pesticides and other harmful chemicals, removing invasive plant species and replacing them with native plants that support wildlife naturally.

The film screenings at the Yale Peabody Museum are:

• Vanishing of the Bees, October 26 The film starts at 6:30 with the doors opening at 5:30. 

• Green Fire, Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time, November 12

Doors will open at 1:00. After the screening of the film you will have a chance to ask local environmental leaders questions about their work and address concerns about the Quinnipiac River.

• Living Downstream, December 9

The film starts at 6:30 with the doors opening at 5:30.

• The Work of 1,000 will be shown during the Peabody’s annual Earth Day celebration.

Visit the Peabody website for complete details.

Representatives from local environmental organizations (please see below for a complete list of organizations) will be at each of the film screenings to speak with the public about the Quinnipiac River Watershed and the work they are doing to protect its valuable natural resources.

Local environmental organizations involved in the project include Audubon Connecticut, Menunkatuck Audubon Society, Quinnipiac Valley Audubon Society, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound, Quinnipiac River Watershed Association, and The Watershed Partnership.

The Quinnipiac River Fund was created “to improve the environmental quality of the Quinnipiac River and the New Haven Harbor and the watersheds of these water bodies, and otherwise to benefit the environment of these resources.” The fund was established in 1990 by a court settlement of litigation between the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Upjohn Company, concerning wastewater discharges from the Upjohn Company’s plant in North Haven. The Upjohn Company was required to pay $1.2 million dollars over a three year period. This money was used to establish a permanent fund. The net income from this fund is used to fund projects that will improve the quality of the Quinnipiac River Watershed.

(From the November 2011 Newsletter)

It was an exciting and astonishing season for the Menunkatuck Project Limulus team. Last year we tagged a total of 370 horseshoe crabs, so when Professor Mark Beekey of Sacred Heart University asked me how many tags I thought I could use this year, I optimistically said 600. Little did I know that I would have to request more tags twice during the season. We ended up tagging a grand total of 975 crabs!

One may conclude from this information that there were more crabs at our beaches this year. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. One reason for the increase in numbers tagged was having more independent taggers this year than last year. Another reason was the extra days the group spent on the beaches during the peak of the spawning season. Between May 25th. and May 28th. we tagged 281 crabs. These were not regular survey days. A third reason why we tagged more crabs was because we had more well trained volunteers this year who were able to tag the crabs as we counted them during the survey of the beach.

Guilfordʼs Project Limulus team surveyed the two beaches at Indian Cove 24 times between May 1st. and July 1st. We also assembled at the Cove beaches 5 extra times for tagging only. We had 8 independent taggers who covered most of the beaches in Guilford. We were more likely to find crabs during the day this year than last year, but we continued to find the most at night. We counted the first crabs of the season on May 15th. The peak of the season was May 27th., when we tagged 110 in one night.

Here is the final data for the 2011 horseshoe crab spawning season:

We counted a total of 171 crabs during the 24 standardized surveys conducted at the 2 Indian Cove beaches. We tagged a total of 975 crabs at Guilford beaches including Indian Cove, Joshua Cove, Shell Beach, Chittenden Beach, Jacobs Beach, and Grass Island. We recorded 262 recaptures (crabs which have been previously tagged). Last year we only found 26 recaptures!

I am grateful to the 40 plus active volunteers for their help and enthusiasm. It was a very successful season and we had a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing all of you next year.

We are always happy to have new volunteers. If you are interested, please contact

judy@menunkatuck.org. For more information about Project Limulus, go to info@projectlimulus.org.

Total crabs tagged in 2010- 370

Total crabs tagged in 2011- 975

Total recaptures in 2010- 26

Total recaptures in 2011- 262

Total crabs counted during surveys in 2010- 151

Total crabs counted during surveys in 2011- 171

2010 Indian Cove Public Beach

Single males-4

Single females-1

Pairs-30

Female with 2 males-2

Female with 3 males-0

Total crabs-71

2011

Single males-19

Single females-9

Pairs-41

Female with 2 males-7

Female with 3 males-1

Total crabs-135

2010 Indian Cove Private Beach

Single males-13

Single females- 4

Pairs-19

Female with 2 males-3

Female with 3 males-4

Total crabs-80

2011

Single males-6

Single females-1

Pairs-13

Female with 2 males-1

Female with 3 males-0

Total crabs-36

Total crabs counted- 36

Green Sea Turtle Found Trapped in Fishing Line

New London Day:

Originally mistaken for a lobster buoy, the endangered sea turtle was found with its neck and extremities bound in fishing line, covered in algae, and with a severely inflamed front and rear flipper (possibly from crab and other sea life nibbling), showing signs the turtle was trapped for a significant amount of time. 

Retrieve your fishing line. There are fishing line recycling bins located at popular fishing spots.

(New London Day photos.)

Osprey with Hook and Monofilament Line

Barb Walker of Clearwater (FL) Audubon Society posted this on the Osprey Migration Group page.

Rescuers were called to St. Petersburg Beach regarding this osprey with a hook and monofilament line entanglement. He is able to fish and eat but if he weakens and comes down to the ground we will know it and will grab him. He is being monitored by area residents, nearby workers and volunteers.

The photos were taken by volunteer Wendy Meehan (used with permission).

Fishing line and birds do not mix.