White Memorial Organizing BioBlitz for 2013

Middletown BioBlitz

White Memorial is proud to announce that it is planning a BioBlitz for May 31 - June 1, 2013 as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of White Memorial Foundation's incorporation.  A BioBlitz is an event where every living organism is counted within a 24 hour period.  Scientists who study specific groups of flora and fauna, referred to as taxonomists, perform the counting and are helped by volunteers.  Families are welcome to attend nature walks, learn more about our natural world, and participate in the inventory.  BioBlitzes are intense with every one trying to count as many species as possible and are loads of fun!  Thousands of organisms are counted by experts and amateurs in only 24 hours.  Our organizing committee consists of local educators, scientists, and conservationists.  Check back here to learn more about our BioBlitz in 2013!

Sue Clarkin, Wamogo High School Science Teacher
April Devereux, Wamogo High School Science Teacher
James Fischer, White Memorial Cons. Ctr. Research Director
Gerri Griswold, White Memorial Cons. Ctr. Director of Administration and Development
Jeff Greenwood, White Memorial Cons. Ctr. Education Director
Nicki Hall, Litchfield Hills Audubon Society Board Member
Twan Leenders, Connecticut Audubon Society Conservation Biologist
John Markelon, Litchfield High School Science Teacher



Waterfowl Nest Box Monitoring Continues

James Fischer, WMCC Research Director, checks the waterfowl nest box
at Beaver Pond to monitor the waterfowl breeding season productivity.
Notice the mink tracks that travel in front of the nest box from left to right.
Photo by Abby Conroy

We continue to take advantage of the short window of adequate ice covering the water under our waterfowl nest boxes on the property.  We want to thank our volunteers who are supporting us with this effort during the brief window of opportunity.  Abby Conroy, Marie Kennedy, Nick Miofsky (CT DEEP EnCon Police Officer), and Susan Spencer have made special efforts this winter season.  Marcus Johansson helped us with several boxes that can be approached via land in the autumn.

Bantam Lake Finally Freezes Over!

Bantam Lake's Outlet as viewed from the
Pt. Folly observation platform in a photo
taken by Ashley Hayes 5 weeks before the rest
of the Lake iced-over on 1/16/2012
Bald Eagles, photo by Paul Fusco from
Canada Geese photo by Bob Stanowski
Mallard photo from www.wikimedia.org
Northern Pintail photo by Tom Munson
As of yesterday, 1/16/2012, most of Bantam Lake had frozen over. This is amazingly late! As usual, the Outlet and the Bantam River downstream all the way to Rt. 209 has remained ice-free. This is typical except in the most severely cold winters. Though much of the waterfowl that had been seen daily at the Lake so far this winter left in the past 3 days, huge numbers of Canada Geese and Mallards, along with fair numbers of American Black Ducks and Ring-necked Ducks, 3 Lesser Scaup, a Northern Pintail, 3 Hooded Mergansers, and at least 101 American Coots have remained in the open water of the Outlet. The geese and Mallards have fallen into a winter activity mode of foraging in cornfields in Litchfield, Morris, Bethlehem, Warren, and Goshen by day, and roosting at the Outlet from sunset until sunrise. Thus, it is best to look for these birds either from the N. Shore Rd. bridge over the Bantam River or the Pt. Folly observation platform between 7 and 8 a.m. or 4 and 5:30 p.m. Any other time of day will produce a lot less. This has been highlighted by our counts Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The morning observations, made by Mike Doyle, produced counts of 725, 500, 800, and 800 Canada Geese and 3, 52, 5, and 13 Mallards for these 4 days, respectively. John Eykelhoff didn't find more than 65 Canada Geese and 10 Mallards on his noon-time visits here these days. However, Jim Kandefer and I counted 1,075 Canada Geese and 500 Mallards coming in to roost here between 4:30 p.m. and dark on Monday, and Jim Dugan and I counted 675 Canada Geese and 175 Mallards doing the same thing during the same time frame on Wednesday. No evening counts were conducted on Tuesday or Thursday. During both evening counts, more geese and Mallards flew in from the north than from the south. We didn't see any fly in from the east or west. It doesn't appear as though many of the 65 American Black Ducks that we saw come in Wednesday evening stayed, as only 9 were counted at the Outlet the next morning. We haven't been able to relocate the hen Northern Pintail that we saw Monday evening. The numbers of American Coots and Lesser Scaup have been dropping steadily all week as these birds exit the area. Greg Hanisek saw a Greater Scaup there Wednesday mid-morning, but we haven't been able to find that bird again. Some birds do only drop in to rest here for a few hours before moving on. As many as 4 Bald Eagles hanging around the Outlet at various times has also been a disincentive for some birds to stay here. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the winter brings.

Summary of Bird Activity at White Memorial and Bantam Lake in December, 2011

Bantam Lake's North Bay, 12/10/2011, showing
ice-free conditions in a photo by Ashley Hayes
Red-necked Grebe photo from www.utahbirds.org
Red-breasted Merganser photo by Dick Daniels
from www.carolinabirds.org
Great Cormorant photo by Paul Fusco from
Great Blue Heron photo by Bob Stanowski
Belted Kingfisher photo by Darlene Knox
Bald Eagle 2nd-year immature photo by Paul Fusco
December, 2011 will be remembered by us birders as an incredibly good month for the bird numbers and variety that it produced at White Memorial and Bantam Lake. We can thank unusually mild weather for much of the month for this. Though there were a few cold nights, and fewer cold days, Bantam Lake never froze-over more than 50% of its surface area. Little Pond was at least 50% open for the first 3 weeks of the month, and Cemetery Pond had open water at various times this month. Even our marshes and swamps remained at least partially ice-free for much of the month. Amazingly, there was no snow cover at any time this month. The 20" of snow which fell last October 29 and 30 had long-since melted. These favorable conditions, coupled with an abundance of wild food of all types, made life relatively easy for birds around here. It also allowed many birds to linger and not migrate farther south. Waterbirds, especially, benefited from the mild conditions and resultant open water. An abundance of fish in Bantam Lake also helped attract and keep a good variety and number of these birds. Imagine how many fish must have been consumed there on 12/31 when the Lake hosted 1,000 Common Mergansers, 87 Hooded Mergansers, a Red-breasted Merganser, a Pied-billed Grebe, a Great Cormorant, 7 Bald Eagles, and 2 Belted Kingfishers. The Great Cormorant is a rare species in this part of CT., having been found on Bantam Lake only 4 times in the past. It stayed around for almost 2 weeks, so it must have found the fishing to be good. That was probably also true for the Pied-billed Grebe, which was found here all month. They are common in October and November, but seldom stay beyond that time. Its much rarer cousin, the Red-necked Grebe, has occasionally lingered into the first week of December at the Lake, but never as late as 12/20, as it did this year. Consequently, it was a first for the Christmas Bird Count. Other "goodies" found on the Lake this month included as many as 10 Gadwalls, American Wigeons on a few occasions, Northern Shovelers all month, 2 Northern Pintails almost all month, a Green-winged Teal 1 day, as many as 9 Lesser Scaup during the second half of the month, 2 White-winged Scoters and a Long-tailed Duck 1 day, single Red-throated and Common Loons each 1 day, and a Horned Grebe during the first week of the month. The Gadwalls and N. Pintails were also seen at Little and Cemetery Ponds when they were ice-free. Landbirds of note seen this month included a Red-shouldered Hawk at the Morris Town Beach, an Eastern Screech-Owl at Little Pond, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker around the Museum Area, Common Ravens, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Brown Creepers, a Carolina Wren at the Campground Store, a Winter Wren at Pike Marsh, a Hermit Thrush and Yellow-rumped Warbler at Little Pond , a Fox Sparrow at Van Winkle Rd., Swamp Sparrows, 86 Rusty Blackbirds at Little Pond on the 1st, and 13 Purple Finches at the Museum Feeders on the 18th. While most of the birds not noted at an exact locality in the last run-on sentence were seen around the Museum Area, some were also regularly seen at Pine Island. In general, spots around Bantam Lake, the Museum Area, and Little Pond were the most productive for birds at White Memorial in December.

Wood Duck Nest Box Inspections, 1/6/2012

Wood Duck male photo by Paul Fusco
Wood Duck Successful Nest, showing egg shells,
membranes that surrounded the chicks when they
hatched, and down from the mother; all on a bed of
wood shavings which we provided.
Photo by Dave Rosgen
This past Friday, 1/6/2012, Nick Miofsky and I (Dave Rosgen) checked 6 of our duck nest boxes for usage in 2011. We visited all 3 boxes at Duck Pond, the one in Pine Island Marsh, and both of the boxes in Mallard Marsh. All of these boxes had been moved from dangerous deepwater locations to safe shoreline locations by Scott Dayton and me last winter. Still, 80" of rain in 2011 put these formerly shoreline spots under as much as 2' of water. Because of all the mild weather that our area has experienced in the past month, much of this water was coated with less than 1" of ice. We were able to break through this ice with a potato hook as we walked to every box except the one on the south side of Duck Pond. The ice there was over 2" thick and held us as we walked on it. If we had fallen through it wouldn't have been a big deal since the water was only about 6" deep. Another major reason to move these boxes to shoreline locations (which was discussed in a few blog postings last winter) was to eliminate flooding of the boxes as a cause of nest failures. It worked! None of these boxes came anywhere close to being flooded, despite massive amounts of rain last year. Coupled with relatively mild weather last spring and our PVC pipe predator guards effectively stopping Raccoons and other predators from raiding the boxes, all 6 of these boxes were successful in fledging young. They were all occupied by Wood Ducks, and leftover eggshell membranes indicated that a total of 46 young hatched from them. Subtracting the one dead baby that we found among the nest material, that means that 45 young successfully fledged from these boxes. That's excellent! We also found a total of 14 unhatched eggs in these boxes. They were probably the first ones laid by the hens last April, and they probably froze on a few cold nights before she commenced incubation of the full clutch. Unfortunately, that's common, but it is offset by the large clutch sizes. More often than not, at least half the eggs in any given clutch hatch. In these boxes it was 77%. Last summer, Marcus Johannson and I checked the 5 shoreline boxes at Ongley Pond, and N. Shore, Pike, and Icehouse Marshes. All of them had Wood Duck nests, with 4 successfully fledging a total of 38 young. The fifth, at Icehouse Marsh, failed due to freezing of the entire clutch of 18 eggs. This probably was a dump nest where more than one female lays her eggs in a box, but none of them settle down to incubate the clutch. It might indicate a need for another box in that area. Despite this one failure we are very pleased that 10 out of the 11 boxes checked so far have been successful. That makes for an excellent success rate of 91% so far. Nicole Morin and I plan to check the last 4 boxes in safe locations this afternoon. Then it will be a matter of waiting until prolonged cold temperatures make ice around the rest of the 19 boxes less dangerous for us to walk on so that we can go out and check them. If that doesn't happen, we will have to use a canoe to get to them when the ice is gone. Somehow, we will make sure that they are checked before the 2012 nesting season begins in April. Stay tuned.

Litchfield Hills Christmas Bird Count Results from White Memorial - 12/18/2011

December 18, 2011

Red-necked Grebe photo from www.nepabirdproject.org
Pied-billed Grebe photo by Bob Stanowski
Northern Shoveler photo by Paul Fusco from
www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com
Northern Pintail photo from www.werc.usgs.gov
Winter Wren photo from www.birds.cornell.edu

Species Total
Canada Goose 336
Mute Swan 19
Gadwall 10
American Wigeon 2
American Black Duck 93
Mallard 506
Northern Shoveler 1
Northern Pintail 1
Ring-necked Duck 47
Lesser Scaup 7
Bufflehead 29
Common Goldeneye 20
Hooded Merganser 72
Common Merganser 100
Ruddy Duck 6
Bald Eagle 2
Cooper’s Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 6
Wild Turkey 15
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Red-necked Grebe 1
Great Blue Heron 1
American Coot 87
Ring-billed Gull 223
Herring Gull 2
Mourning Dove 93
Great Horned Owl 2
Barred Owl 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 17
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Downy Woodpecker 32
Hairy Woodpecker 11
Northern Flicker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Blue Jay 74
American Crow 325
Common Raven 1
Black-capped Chickadee 210
Tufted Titmouse 94
Red-breasted Nuthatch 6
White-breasted Nuthatch 70
Brown Creeper 7
Carolina Wren 1
Winter Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 10
Eastern Bluebird 8
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 56
Gray Catbird 1
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 92
Cedar Waxwing 9
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
American Tree Sparrow 19
Fox Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 17
Swamp Sparrow 5
White-throated Sparrow 97
Dark-eyed Junco 314
Northern Cardinal 53
Red-winged Blackbird 4
Common Grackle 1
Purple Finch 18
House Finch 31
American Goldfinch 91
House Sparrow 15

Totals:
Species: 67
Individuals: 3,382

Weather: Sunny. Temperature 15 - 32° F. No snow cover. Water 95% Open; Wild food crop excellent.
Participants: Beverly Baldwin, Mike Doyle, John Eykelhoff, John Grabowski, Jim Kandefer, Marie Kennedy, John Marshall, Russ Naylor, Art Potwin, Donna Potwin, Dave Rosgen, Heather Shirlock, George Stephens.