RED-NECKED PHALAROPES at Bantam Lake

Red-necked Phalarope photo from www.fssbirding.org.uk

After a nearly a week of absolutely awful weather a major improvement occurred for a short while yesterday, 5/20. The day began mostly sunny and stayed nice until late afternoon, when thunderstorms rolled in. Migrant birds, which had been stalled since last Sunday by the combination of rain, drizzle, fog, and northeasterly winds staged a significant movement during the brief interlude of nice weather. I'll try to do a blog post next week about the other birds that poured through northwest Connecticut this day, but this posting is about the absolute best bird that we found. That is the Red-necked Phalarope. It is such a rare bird in Connecticut that I've only seen the species once before in my 42 years of birding. Amazingly, the first one was only a few miles away from White Memorial and only 3 days off from this sighting. That bird was at a pond at Anderson's Farm on Anderson Rd. in Morris on 5/23/2000. The weather pattern was very similar to that which occurred this week. I think that the shifting winds from northeast to southeast, coupled with rapidly deteriorating weather conditions over the Atlantic Ocean, drove (or blew) these birds inland. Three additional Red-necked Phalaropes were reported yesterday from Mansfield Hollow Reservoir in Windham. Our sighting consisted of 4 birds that I spotted from the tip of Pt. Folly as they flew up the length of Bantam Lake. Having only binoculars since I had left my spotting scope home under the assumption that this day's weather was also going to turn out to be awful, I initially had a hard time deciding what these birds were. They were too small to be terns or gulls, but too large to be swallows. Besides, they flew erratically like shorebirds often do. With a Spotted and a Solitary Sandpiper right in front of me for comparison I decided that these had to be shorebirds. Fortunately, they kept flying toward me. I yelled for Jim Kandefer, who was birding the Point with me, but had followed a wave of warblers up into the woods. He came down to the tip of the Point just as I got a good enough side view of these birds to decide that they were phalaropes. Even though Red and Wilson's Phalaropes are less likely to show up in southern New England in the spring than Red-necked, they still can't be ruled out. Since I had already gotten John Marshall heading up to Pt. Folly with my earlier report of a Bonaparte's Gull and 13 Blackpoll Warblers, I got him to speed our way even faster with my next call to him reporting phalaropes. Fortunately for us, he had his really nice Swarovski spotting scope with him. He arrived a few minutes later as the birds settled onto the water about 400' out from us. I put the scope on them, and we got excellent views which left no doubt that they were Red-necked. We also double checked oursleves with our field guides. One bird was an adult male in full breeding plumage. The other 3 appeared to be in various stages of molt from basic to alternate plumage, so we couldn't be sure if they were males or females. Oddly, it is the female phalaropes that are more colorful than the males. It is also the males that incubate the eggs and tend the young on their Arctic nesting grounds. As we watched these birds they flitted back and forth, flew around, spun around in circles on the water as this group of birds characteristically does when they are feeding, and sat and preened. After 20 minutes of enjoying the antics of these very rare birds a thunderstorm rolled in and chased us back to our vehicles. We then set-about the task of trying to notify as many birders as possible to the presence of these birds, both via the ctbirds listserve on the Internet and phone calls. To our knowledge only one other birder braved the thunderstorms to come out and see them this evening. All attempts by birders to find them today came up empty. They had probably continued their journey to the Arctic as soon as the storms passed by last night. It should also be noted that the only other sighting of this species on White Memorial property was on August 22, 1997. Jeff Feldmann found and photographed that bird while kayaking on Little Pond. Stormy weather preceded that sighting, too. The photograph still hangs on a wall in the Museum's upstairs bathroom. More than ever it is an incentive for me to spend less time in there and more time in the field looking for birds.

Bluebird Nest Box Spring Inspections

Adult male Tree Swallow photo by

Bob Stanowski

Adult female Eastern Bluebird photo by

Bob Stanowski

Photo by Dave Rosgen of WMCC volunteer

Jim Kandefer opening a bluebird nest box

for inspection in the Bantam R. Field

The Connecticut Bluebird Restoration Project currently maintains 78 bluebird nest boxes on White Memorial Foundation property in Litchfield and Morris. We monitor them regularly from mid-March through mid-October, with the first and last inspections of each year focusing on addressing maintenance needs and performing vegetation management. Fortunately for us and the birds, most of the nest boxes are less than 5 years old, and, thus, don't require much maintenance work. Just like anything else, as the boxes age, they require more maintenance. Eventually, it gets to a point where it is no longer practical to continue repairing an old box, and it is replaced with a new one. This usually happens when a box is between 12 and 15 years old. We are able to achieve such long life spans by using high quality white pine lumber for all of the component parts of the nest boxes, fastening the parts together with 1 5/8" drywall or deck screws (never nails!), and by caulking the seams between the back and sides and top and sides. This technique has proven to be very effective in keeping moisture out of the boxes, which, in turns, keeps them from rotting prematurely. All of the poles are fitted with hardware cloth or aluminum flashing mouse guards as a cap over the PVC pipe predator guard (which is essential!) that encircles the pole on which the box is mounted. Mice can ruin a nest box in one season, so it is extremely important to keep them out. Ice and snow can take more of a toll on nest boxes than rain, so it is really important to check them in March in order to repair winter-caused damage. So far this spring we've been lucky. Out of 24 boxes inspected in the past week, only 2 needed to have component parts replaced. In both cases, the front door was split; probably from moisture entering cracks and then freezing. We also found one old wooden pole to be rotted. That will be replaced very soon with a new metal pole. Over the past few years we've been transitioning away from wooden poles to metal ones because the metal ones last so much longer. We also found one pole at a 45 degree angle, and straightened it back up. This might have been caused by a buck White-tailed Deer sparring with it last fall. While checking the boxes we were pleased to see a pair of Eastern Bluebirds back on territory in each of the fields, and a group of 8 newly-arrived Tree Swallows in the Alain White Rd. field. These maintenance inspections will probably continue for another 2 weeks, until all of the boxes have been visited, and until any problems that are encountered are corrected.