Wildlife Camera Images -- March 2017

Images recorded at White Memorial Conservation Center Bird Blind, unless stated otherwise on the White Memorial Foundation Property.  Time stamped is Eastern Standard Time, daylight savings time is not used.

 Mammals

Virginia Opossum

Eastern Coyote at Harris Rd. Field

Eastern Coyote at Heron Pond Outlet

Red Fox

Red Fox

Red Fox

Red Fox in StormWise Project along S.R. 63

Raccoon

Piebald White-tailed Deer in StormWise Project along S.R. 63

White-tailed Deer in Harris Rd. Field

Red Squirrel

White-footed Mouse at Heron Pond Outlet

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Birds

American Crow

American Robin

Blue Jay

Mourning Dove

Purple Grackle

Purple Grackle

Red-winged Blackbird

Red-winged Blackbirds

Male Wild Turkey at Harris Rd. Field

Lingering Birds

Rusty Blackbird photo from

www.columbusaudubon.org

Fox Sparrow photo by Leo Kulinski

from www.whalesandwolves.com

Belted Kingfisher photo by Darlene Knox

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker photo by Leo Kulinski

from www.whalesandwolves.com

The relatively mild weather that has blessed Connecticut for much of the past 6 weeks should have been conducive to let late migrant birds linger around here for longer than they usually would. This is especially likely when there is an abundance of wild food, as there is this year. However, unlike the waterbirds discussed in my last post, there don't seem to be all that many migrant landbirds lingering around here. They do take more effort to find than waterbirds, but we have tried to look for them on a few occasions this month. This is not to say that we haven't had some success. Yesterday, I was greeted by a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker when I went up onto the Museum's deck to fill the feeders. When they get hungry enough they will visit suet feeders. On the 7th, Mike Doyle had a Belted Kingfisher at Bantam Lake's Pt. Folly. They will occasionally stay through the winter if there is enough open water and an adequate supply of small fish to eat. On the 5th, Buzz Devine counted 86 Rusty Blackbirds in a flock along the north side of the Little Pond Boardwalk. Four days later, I saw 2 at Cemetery Pond. They are quite nomadic, and probably have gone farther south by now, but every year we find a few Rusties around here during the winter. Some Red-winged Blackbirds also spend the winter here. Our most recent report of them was from the Museum's feeders on the 10th. Though I haven't seen a Winter Wren or Fox Sparrow on White Memorial property since 11/25, that doesn't mean that 1 or 2 aren't around here somewhere. I have seen a Fox Sparrow elsewhere in Litchfield in the past week. It is a little odd that we haven't seen any big flocks of American Robins around here since 11/25, especially given the continued abundance of Winterberry Holly berries. They may be around; just not in places that we haven't visited lately. All that will change this coming Sunday, 12/18, when we plan to cover White Memorial's property and Bantam Lake as thoroughly as possible for the Litchfield Hills Christmas Bird Count. If you would like to help, please email me at dave@whitememorialcc.org. I still need people who can work independently censusing birds along some of our outlying trails, like the Cathedral Complex and Trail Rider's Jump.

Summary of Results from the 2011 Woodbury Route Breeding Bird Survey

Eastern Towhee photo by Bob Nicks

from www.carolinabirdclub.org

Savannah Sparrow photo by Paul Fusco

from www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com

Blue-winged Warbler photo by Brian Zweibel

from www.carolinabirdclub.org

Brown Thrasher photo by Paul Fusco

from www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com

As a follow-up to my last posting about the results of last summer's Breeding Bird Survey of the Warren-to-Northfield route, here are the results of the survey of the Woodbury-to-Goshen route that I conducted on July 4th. I thought that by doing this on this date I would avoid a lot of the annoyances caused by vehicular traffic on weekdays. Wrong! Actually, I was right that there would be very little traffic during the early morning, but it picked up considerably after 8:30 a.m. This was especially true on State Routes 109 and 202. Despite the traffic, this survey produced 3 more species and 582 more individual birds than last year. The 72 species found this year is a little above average and the 1,910 individual birds recorded is about 400 more than average. It certainly helped that weather conditions were absolutely gorgeous this day. Besides sunshine, there was only a light breeze and low humidity. It also helped that the destruction of land for housing and other developments ground to a halt along this route 3 years ago and hasn't resumed. We can be cautiously optimistic that Brown Thrashers (3), a Blue-winged Warbler, 17 Eastern Towhees, and a Savannah Sparrow were found along this route this year. All 4 of these grassland/shrubland species are hurting across much of their range. A fifth member of this habitat group, the Indigo Bunting, was found along this route this year in the form of 10 individuals, but this marks the second year of a decline in their numbers. Species noticeably less common this year than last year included Tree Swallow (probably due to June being so cold and wet) and Ovenbird (maybe because they sing a lot less in July than in June). Only 9 other species were less numerous this year than last year. By contrast, 56 species were found to be in higher numbers this year than last year. This tracks with the findings from the Summer Bird Counts that were held in June. However, as I said in the last blog posting, it is impossible to detect all of the birds at each of the 50 stops because the standardized protocol has us spending only 3 minutes at each stop. As it is, some people think that I'm hallucinating because I get so many birds at many of these spots in such a short time. It is simply a matter of having excellent hearing and knowing what I'm hearing. Very few of the birds on these surveys are actually seen. Getting back to the birds, themselves, the species showing the biggest increases over last year were Chipping Sparrow, Gray Catbird, American Goldfinch, Cedar Waxwing, American Robin, Veery, Red-eyed Vireo, Tufted Titmouse, and House Sparrow. Most of these species are highly adaptable. The 5 most abundant species this year, in decreasing order of abundance, were American Robin, Gray Catbird, Chipping Sparrow, American Goldfinch, and Tufted Titmouse.

Major Early Snowstorm and its Aftermath

Large White Pine tree broken behind White Memorial's

Museum after the 10/29/2011 snowstorm

photo by Dave Rosgen

Shrubs flattened by 10/29/2011 snowstorm

at White Memorial's Wheeler Hill

photo by Dave Rosgen

White Memorial's Pt. Folly Marsh

2 days after the snowstorm

photo by Dave Rosgen

Bald Eagle photo by Paul Fusco from

www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com

Winterberry Holly photo by Dave Rosgen

Pokeberry photo by Dave Rosgen

Eastern Bluebird photo from www.allaboutbirds.org

Fox Sparrow photo by Bob Stanowski

Connecticut was pounded by a record-breaking early Nor'easter snowstorm from around 1 p.m. on Saturday, 10/29/2011, through sunrise on Sunday, 10/30/2011. It dropped 20" of snow on White Memorial and was accompanied by high winds for about 8 hours. This spelled disaster for many trees, shrubs, and other plants which were either flattened by the heavy, wet snow, or broke under its weight. Power was knocked out to the Museum Area for 9 days. Much of the tree damage involved broken limbs or sections of trunk rather than entire trees being blown over as happened during the tropical storms in August and September. Still, damage is extensive, and it will take quite a while to get all of our trails cleared despite the Herculean efforts of our great maintenance crew. A major savior to our wildlife (especially the birds) through all of this mess has been the super abundance of berries, nuts, and seeds. Though it was rendered unavailable for a while after the snowstorm, rapid melting of the snow exposed much of these foods within 12 hours. Therefore, I doubt that much, if any, starvation occurred among our wildlife. One exception would be totally insectivorous birds, but virtually all of them had already migrated south before this storm. One species just beginning to migrate south through here now is the Fox Sparrow. Bird feeders can greatly help these birds through foul weather, and that proved to be the case for the feeders behind the museum. In addition to hosting a ton of White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, and other common birds after the snowstorm, they also fed 3 Fox Sparrows for a week. Since then we've seen this species feeding on weed seeds along the Little Pond Trail and at the Butterfly Garden. Some people expressed concern for American Robins, Eastern Bluebirds, and Cedar Waxwings after the storm, but they are doing just fine chowing down on an abundance of Winterberry Holly and Pokeweed berries. Waterbirds seemed to be unphased by the storm since Bantam Lake and most of our ponds (except Cemetery) remained ice free. Bald Eagles and other raptors seemed to carry-on as usual. I even saw 2 different Bald Eagles fly low over the museum on Sunday, 10/30, while I was shoveling snow off the deck. So, while this unprecedented snowstorm completely disrupted the lives of us humans and did quite a bit of damage to vegetation, it probably didn't do much harm to our wildlife.

Cedar Waxwings

Cedar Waxwing photographed by

Bob Stanowski using Digiscope

This past Saturday, 2/5/11, while going down to the Bird Observatory behind the Museum to fill the feeders, Samantha Foster and I heard, and then saw, a group of Cedar Waxwings perched in the Mountain-ash tree near the Observatory's door. Unfortunately for them, all of the berries had been eaten off of this tree last fall by Cedar Waxwings, American Robins, Gray Catbirds, Northern Flickers, and other frugivores. That was also the last time that we saw any decent sized flocks of waxwings. According to our records stored in ebird, the highest number of waxwings reported on the Property last year was a flock of 90, seen one day in September. After that, October's high count dropped to 32, November's to 17, and December's to 8. They were reported 35 times in September, 26 in October, 13 in November, and only once in December. We didn't see any on the Property last month. Given the lack of berries remaining anywhere around here this winter, we doubt that we will see this species much this month. The flock that we saw took us by surprise, as I wasn't expecting them, given the lack of food. They didn't stay above us for long. The whole flock, which ended-up consisting of 20 birds flew to the big Norway Maple in the Activity Field, then back around over us, then off to the south. They could be in New Jersey by now.