White Memorial Geographic Information System (GIS) Update

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 bono publico.  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.

We thank Matt for his generosity and support.

Cerceris Wasp Biosurveillance of Emerald Ash Borer -- 2011 Initial Results

Cerceris fumipennis with EAB
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.

Cerceris Wasp Biosurveillance of Emerald Ash Borer -- 2011 Initial Results

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.

An Evening at Little Pond

Gray Catbird photo from www.tringa.org

Pileated Woodpecker photo by

Leo Kulinski, Jr. from http://www.whalesandwolves.com/


Least Sandpiper photo from http://www.tringa.org/


Killdeer photo from www.gpnc.org

Great Blue Heron photo by Sean Casini

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.

Porcupine Sighted Near Teal Pond



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!

Litchfield Hills Summer Bird Count - An Explanation of Some of the Numbers

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker by Leo Kulinski


Veery by Darlene Knox


Gray Catbird by Charles Tysinger from




American Redstart adult male from tringa.org

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.

2011 Litchfield Hills Audubon Summer Bird Count Results on White Memorial Foundation Property Only

Canada Goose48
Mute Swan5
Wood Duck37
Mallard  53
Common Merganser1
Wild Turkey21
Double-crested Cormorant20
Great Blue Heron14
Turkey Vulture4
Osprey1
Bald Eagle4
Sharp-shinned Hawk1
Cooper's Hawk5
Broad-winged Hawk8
Red-tailed Hawk10
American Kestrel1
Merlin1
Virginia Rail4
Killdeer11
American Woodcock6
Mourning Dove146
Great Horned Owl2
Barred Owl16
Chimney Swift26
Ruby-throated Hummingbird15
Belted Kingfisher5
Red-bellied Woodpecker47
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker122
Downy Woodpecker100
Hairy Woodpecker28
Northern Flicker32
Pileated Woodpecker19
Eastern Wood-Pewee54
Acadian Flycatcher2
Alder Flycatcher25
Willow Flycatcher24
Eastern Phoebe35
Great Crested Flycatcher66
Eastern Kingbird69
Yellow-throated Vireo22
Blue-headed Vireo8
Warbling Vireo40
Red-eyed Vireo242
Blue Jay90
American Crow223
Fish Crow7
Common Raven2
N. Rough-winged Swallow10
Tree Swallow234
Bank Swallow1
Barn Swallow41
Black-capped Chickadee233
Tufted Titmouse164
Red-breasted Nuthatch8
White-breasted Nuthatch61
Brown Creeper14
Carolina Wren3
House Wren18
Winter Wren1
Marsh Wren27
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher34
Eastern Bluebird52
Veery428
Hermit Thrush23
Wood Thrush154
American Robin310
Gray Catbird465
Northern Mockingbird1
European Starling101
Cedar Waxwing402
Blue-winged Warbler29
Yellow Warbler307
Chestnut-sided Warbler  45
Magnolia Warbler2
Black-throated Blue Warbler2
Yellow-rumped Warbler12
Black-throated Green Warbler49
Blackburnian Warbler18
Pine Warbler57
Black-and-White Warbler112
American Redstart113
Worm-eating Warbler4
Ovenbird244
Northern Waterthrush13
Louisiana Waterthrush4
Common Yellowthroat306
Canada Warbler17
Eastern Towhee75
Chipping Sparrow205
Field Sparrow2
Song Sparrow231
Swamp Sparrow232
Dark-eyed Junco2
Scarlet Tanager60
Northern Cardinal147
Rose-breasted Grosbeak30
Indigo Bunting6
Bobolink4
Red-winged Blackbird411
Common Grackle253
Brown-headed Cowbird50
Orchard Oriole1
Baltimore Oriole68
Purple Finch42
House Finch  51
American Goldfinch277
House Sparrow31

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