Matthew Goclowski takes a break from recording data
to show off a night Fisheries Survey catch
with CT DEEP, Fisheries Division.
Basic Elements of White Memorial's Geographic Information System Upgrade
by Matthew Goclowski
Geographic Information System (GIS) is commonly associated with maps and the cartographers that build maps. GIS has evolved into more than just maps. It has become a way of perceiving the landscape and the unique relationships associated with features found on a landscape. It is White Memorial's fortune that Matthew Goclowski approached us to help update our GIS database pro bonopublico. Matthew Goclowski is a fisheries biologist in Connecticut, who occasionally works for CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Fisheries Division. He has worked for other natural resource management non-profit organizations in New England aiding their GIS needs and knew what we needed to get our system up to speed. Matthew's education includes a Bachelor of Science from the University of Connecticut, a Master of Science from Auburn University, and a Postbaccalaureate Certificate in GIS from Pennsylvania State University. Matt's upgrade will help us with a wide variety of Research and Conservation Program elements, primarily communicating with our colleagues in Natural Resource Management.
Cerceris fumipennis with Emerald Ash Borer
Photo by Phillip Careless www.cerceris.info
It was a great day of catching Cerceris Wasps and collecting Buprestid Beetles at Morris Town Beach Ball Field. Olivia Riccio and Becca Solnit helped capture 16 beetles in 1 hour and 30 minutes. There were a total 36 nests in this colony. The weather was mild at approximately 80 degrees Fahrenheit, mostly cloudy sky, and a gentle occasional breeze from the southwest at 0 to 2 mph.
Locations of Cerceris Wasp colonies (Red Markers) used as biosurveillance tool for
Emerald Ash Borer at White Memorial Foundation, Litchfield & Morris, CT, USA.
Google Earth Image
We identified 4 colonies of Cerceris Wasps in close proximity to the property. The wasp watchers have been steadily collecting beetles (42 from all of the colonies) that the wasps have been bringing back to their nests. The wasps become active every sunny day around 11:00 a.m. EST with their orientation flights around the nest entrance. Very soon after leaving they start bring back beetles to their nests, where the wasp watchers are waiting to catch and release the wasp unharmed but leaving a beetle in the bottom of the insect net. The beetles are sent to our state's coordinator for this project Claire Rutledge at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
This past Saturday, 7/23/11, 6 intrepid souls braved hot, humid weather, a million mosquitoes, and thousands of Deer Flies to go on an adventure around the Little Pond Boardwalk with me from 6 p.m. until dark. We went in from the end of S. Lake St. on the boardwalk connector. Gray Catbirds were abundant along this stretch, as well as along much of the main boardwalk. Many of them were feeding fledglings. Large numbers of adult and juvenile American Robins and adult Cedar Waxwings were also found in these places dominated by berry-producing bushes. When we got to the main boardwalk we turned left and followed it clockwise around the pond. The east side produced the aforementioned species and other common birds. The south side, especially near Sutton's Bridge, produced lots of Swamp Sparrows with fledglings, an Alder Flycatcher, a couple of Willow Flycatchers, a pair of very feisty Eastern Kingbirds with fledglings, 16 flyover Killdeer, a fly-over Wood Duck and Pileated Woodpecker, a Fish Crow, a Muskrat, and a juvenile Northern Leopard Frog. Bird life along the west side mirrored that found along the east side. The north side produced the most action, as it always does. With my spotting scope we watched a hen Common Merganser with 4 young feeding out in the Pond, and 9 Killdeer, a Spotted Sandpiper, 4 Semipalmated Sandpipers, and 4 Least Sandpipers feeding in the mud between the Bantam River's inlet and outlet. Right along the boardwalk we saw more Willow and Alder Flycatchers, Eastern Kingbirds, Cedar Waxwings, and Swamp Sparrows, plus 5 Marsh Wrens and a Purple Finch. We heard a juvenile Virginia Rail calling from the big patch of sedge hummocks, but didn't see it. Two Great Blue Herons kept a respectable distance between each other along the Pond's shoreline. At dusk a total of 5 Beavers traversed various parts of the pond. At that point we exited to S. Lake St., hot, sweaty, and bit-up, but satisfied to have seen and/or heard 51 species of birds plus plenty of other wildlife and plants. All-in-all it was a successful and educational field trip.
Kyle Courtney is on our maintenance crew and he observed a porcupine while he was bicycling on the trails around Teal Pond! Kyle observed the porcupine on June 18, 2011 at approximately 4:15 p.m. This is the first direct observation of a live porcupine recorded on the property! This past winter we observed several signs near Teal Pond that indicated a porcupine lived on the property during the winter months. Connecticut's porcupine population resides in the northwest and northeastern corners. The White Memorial Foundation property is located on the edge of Connecticut's porcupine geographic range. We have an ongoing experiment that has placed salt treated wooden stakes at regular intervals throughout the Five Pond region to observe porcupine chew marks on the sticks. Porcupines have a strong salt drive from April to August and we wanted to use this behavior in our favor so initialized this project to indicate where the porcupine resided on the property this summer. To date, the salt treated wooden stakes have not yielded clear evidence of a porcupine residing on the property this summer. Therefore, Kyle's observation is an important one.
When we heard this news, we had to run to see if we could find the animal for ourselves. Olivia Riccio, Becca Solnit, and I performed several straight line transects through the region looking up into every tree for our porcupine. Although the weather was quite warm and humid, Becca and Olivia showed some true grit. After two hours of tromping over logs, rocks, and through swamps, we didn't find our animal. But we have not given up, yet!
As a followup to the posting that we did just a little while ago with the totals from White Memorial for the 2011 Litchfield Hills Summer Bird Count I wanted to clarify the reasons for some of the high numbers. No, we aren't imagining birds or counting the same ones several times over. Numbers like these do occur in some places at the height of the breeding season when there is a flood of new babies into the population. In many years this occurs after the Summer Bird Count. This year birds got started earlier than usual with their breeding activity so rather than incubating eggs during the SBC period they were mostly feeding nestlings. Some even had fledglings already! A dead giveaway to the presence of young is an adult carrying food or a fecal sac. That's why this type of observation is perfectly good as a means of confirming nesting for Breeding Bird Atlases or ebird. When we observe this behavior we take a few extra minutes to watch and listen for young birds. They are usually pretty quick to give away their presence with food calls when they are hungry. We then count the babies that we can see or estimate the number that we think that we can hear. It also helps to have excellent hearing like I have. If we can't see or hear babies we just add 1 more to the tally for the species of bird that is carrying the food item because we know that it is destined for a baby. The photos above show a few examples of the species of birds that were found in much higher-than-average numbers on the SBC this year, largely due to the inclusion of nestlings.
Count Period: June 8 - 15, 2011 with focus on June 11 & 12, 2011 Total Species: 107
Total Individuals: 7999
Party Hours: 84
Parties: 12
Observers (18): Patti & Rich Clarke, Mike Doyle, John Eykelhoff, Samantha Foster, Carol & John Grabowski, James Harmon, Roger Johnson, Jim Kandefer, Marie Kennedy, John Marshall, Donna McLean, Russ Naylor, Darlene Pelletier, Alyssa Rosenberg, Dave Rosgen, John Shugrue