Wood Duck Nest Box Inspections, 1/6/2012

Wood Duck male photo by Paul Fusco

from www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com

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.

Solitary Sandpipers aren't always solitary

Spotted Sandpiper from http://www.discoverlife.org

Solitary Sandpiper from http://www.utahbirds.org/

Many of my previous posts have discussed the various groups of birds migrating back to and through White Memorial this spring. That includes shorebirds, which I've touched upon a couple of times. Now that we've passed the halfway point in May the shorebird migration will pick up, both in terms of diversity of species and the numbers of individuals moving through. Even though most people associate shorebirds with coastal, saltwater locations, there are inland places such as Bantam Lake and Little Pond in Litchfield, Great Pond in Simsbury, and Nod Brook in Avon which also appeal to shorebirds. If these birds become tired and/or hungry when they are passing over a lake or pond with a muddy shoreline, they are likely to drop in. They seem to be just as capable of finding and eating freshwater invertebrate animals as they would ones from saltwater environments. In fact, many shorebirds breed along bodies of freshwater in Canada. One of them, the Solitary Sandpiper, is pretty much exclusive to freshwater. It is one of the most likely species to be seen at inland water bodies in New England as it passes through northbound in April and May and southbound from late July through late September. Its name is somewhat of a misnomer, at least during migration time. While they aren't sociable, it is still possible to find quite a few of them in an area like Little Pond which offers them ideal feeding conditions when the water is low enough. We are currently experiencing these ideal conditions as floodwaters from the past month recede and expose mud inhabited by a host of invertebrate critters. That's why we encountered 14 Solitary Sandpipers, each, on 5/7 and 5/9 at Little Pond. E-bird flagged these as unusually high numbers, which I had to explain for them to accept. These birds weren't all concentrated on the mud bar at the Bantam River's inlet to Little Pond, as most shorebirds like Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs are. Instead, they were spread out rather evenly from this point down around to the River's outlet and then down the length of the River to a point below Sutton's Bridge on the Boardwalk. That's a distance of 1/4 mile. Each bird had its own foraging space. When one bird encroached into another bird's space, objections were voiced, and sometimes a chase ensued. Obviously, they would be solitary if they had a choice. By contrast, the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers all foraged together in relative peace at the mud bar, inlet, and outlet. Also found in this area was a Spotted Sandpiper. They prefer to remain somewhat solitary, too. Unlike these other shorebirds, though, this species will remain here to nest. Each summer we can usually find one pair at Little Pond, one or two pairs along the Bantam River as it heads down to Bantam Lake, and 2 pairs in the North Shore Marsh along Bantam Lake's North Bay. They nest on the ground among grasses and sedges, and forage for food along the muddy, sandy, and rocky shorelines. The Old Camp Townsend beach is an especially good place to see them from now through late September.

Migrant Fallout, Tuesday, 5/3/2011

Gray Catbird photo by Leo Kulinski, Jr.

from whalesandwolves.com

Red-winged Blackbird immature male

photo by Bob Stanowski

In ornithological terms a fallout is any mass downing of birds from their flight. It is usually caused by storms or other bad weather, but can also be caused by exhaustion or hunger. In the cases of the latter 2 causes they most often happen after birds have crossed a large expanse of water (like the Gulf of Mexico) or have made some other very long flight. Fallouts caused by storms or other foul weather can occur anywhere. Sometimes the weather doesn't even have to be all that bad to bring birds down. That was the case this past Monday night and Tuesday morning when conditions were cloudy and a little foggy with a couple of showers and some drizzle. It was unpleasant, but by no means severe. However, it may have been bad enough to bring a lot of birds down to the N. Shore Marsh and several of White Memorial's trails that run along or near this large wetland. It was also obvious that these birds were hungry, as I saw a lot of feeding activity. Lucky for them, fishflies and other insects were in abundance. I headed down there around 2 p.m. with the intention of conducting our first Breeding Bird Census of 2011. Even though the spring migration is still in full swing, some birds, like Red-winged Blackbirds and Swamp Sparrows, are establishing territories for the upcoming breeding season. Now that N. Shore Marsh is more of a shrubby hardwood swamp than a marsh it regularly hosts almost 50 species of birds as nesters. Back in the 1960's, '70's, and '80's when this wetland was mostly mixed herbaceous and shrub marsh it only hosted about 20 species as nesters. In this case, succession has been beneficial to birds. Many species have been added to this area, while very few have been lost. On Tuesday I found 66 species, many of which would never breed in a wetland. A lot of these were in trees and shrubs along the Lake, Windmill Hill, Ongley Pond, and Mill Field Trails as they run along the northern border of N. Shore Marsh. For species that do breed here it was difficult to tell which individual birds are likely to remain as summer residents and which were migrants that will move on northwards. That's why I try to conduct 10 censuses of each of our 5 Breeding Bird Census plots from early May through late July. This helps to weed-out the breeders from the migrants. Though I was tempted to publish a complete list of the birds that I found Tuesday, I decided that it would be unnecessary since readers can go to ebird.org to view it. Instead, shown below are the species that I found in higher-than-average numbers for early May and their average expected numbers in parentheses:

Northern Flicker - 12 (4); Great Crested Flycatcher - 10 (4); Eastern Kingbird - 14 (4); Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 19 (6); Gray Catbird - 33 (16); Yellow Warbler - 69 (22); Common Yellowthroat - 23 (12); Song Sparrow 24 (8); Swamp Sparrow - 31 (24); Red-winged Blackbird - 88 (40); Common Grackle - 92 (30); Baltimore Oriole - 13 (3); American Goldfinch - 44 (10)

Some of the figures above also include birds seen at the Museum Feeders and in Ongley and Activity Fields. These birds regularly commute back and forth between these areas and N. Shore Marsh. Other birds seen in higher-than-average numbers around all of the above-mentioned areas combined included Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, American Robins, Pine Warblers, and Black-and-White Warblers. These last 2 species were twice as abundant as usual. Some of the other species, like titmice, aren't generally considered to be migrants, but their recent upsurge in numbers might indicate otherwise. Some of the other species, like Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles, stage much of their migration activity in March and April, but are obviously continuing to move through so far this month. With persistent lousy weather it is no surprise that the migration is prolonged this year, and that fallouts are occurring.

Where to Find Mid-Spring Migrant Birds at White Memorial

Savannah Sparrow photo by Paul Fusco

Greater Yellowlegs photo by Paul Fusco

A question was asked recently about the locations of our bird sightings during the spring migration at White Memorial. The person asking the question wondered why so many of the sightings were around the "Main Area" and Little Pond. The answer is simple, with 3 reasons. First, these places are convenient to get to, especially for us staff members who have other duties to perform around the Museum, which is at the center of the "Main Area". Second, they are generally easy to walk around and offer relatively easy viewing of birds. The "Main Area" consists of the lawns around the Museum, White Hall Rd. and its side driveways, Ongley, Activity, Carriage House, and Mill Fields, and Lake, Ongley Pond, Mill Field, and Interpretive Trails, and N. Shore and Pike Marshes. The Little Pond area consists of the Pond, itself, associated marshes, the primary trail leading in from White's Woods Rd. through the Old Sewer Beds, the secondary trail leading in from White's Woods Rd. along Moulthrop Brook, the boardwalk connector leading in from South Lake St., and the boardwalk around Little Pond. Third, these areas include grassy, mixed herbaceous, and shrubby fields, shrubby and wooded edges, mixed hardwood, hemlock/hardwood, white pine/hardwood, white pine/hemlock, and white pine forests, cattail, mixed herbaceous, and shrubby marshes, shrubby hardwood swamps, hardwood swamps, ponds, and the Bantam River for habitats. This is one heck of a mix of habitats in a relatively small geographic area, and they consistently prove themselves to be extremely attractive to migrant birds. They offer everything birds need in terms of food, water, and shelter. It also helps that we provide bird feeders at the Museum and try to encourage native berry, seed, and nut producing vegetation to grow around this area. It's only 3 days into the month of May and we've already seen or heard 68 species of birds on the Property with all of them occurring around the "Main Area" or Little Pond. These include the Greater Yellowlegs and Savannah Sparrow shown in the accompanying photos. Other neat birds found around here since the last blog post include Black Vulture, Merlin, American Woodcock, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Wood Thrush, Nashville, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Blackburnian, and Prairie Warblers, Northern Parula, and American Redstart. These birds were encountered at all times of the day, but the most productive times were before 11 a.m. and after 5 p.m. This is the best time of the year to see birds, so come out to White Memorial and enjoy them; and please remember to post your sightings on ebird.org.

Wetland Birds Are Arriving at White Memorial

Sora photo from wikipedia.edu

Great Blue Heron photographed

at Bantam Lake's North Bay

by Bob Stanowski
Virginia Rail photographed on

White Memorial's Little Pond Boardwalk
by Paul Fusco

(www.paulfuscowildlifephotography.com)

Many different types of birds can be found in wetlands, but the ones that we refer to as wetland birds generally fall into the heron and rail families. Virtually all of them spend the winter well-south of Connecticut since they don't have any easy time dealing with ice-covered marshes, swamps, ponds, and lakes. Great Blue Herons are an exception, as many of them have found they can get plenty of fish to eat along rivers and Long Island Sound. They can often be found downstream from hydroelectric dams like Shepaug and Stevenson because the water usually remains open all winter. Their closer proximity to Litchfield and Morris throughout the winter means that Great Blue Herons are the first wetland birds to arrive back here in the spring. In most years their arrival starts around the first of March, but this year we didn't see the first ones until March 15. That had to be due to ice conditions and the awful weather of the previous 4 months. With winter loosening its grip and ice finally melting over the course of the rest of the month more Great Blues appeared. Most of the sightings were initially around Bantam Lake, but they soon expanded to include the Bantam River. The first Great Blues appeared at Little Pond on 3/31 of this year. They are now being seen almost daily at Bantam Lake or somewhere on White Memorial property. A few of the birds at the North Shore Marsh are exhibiting territorial behavior, so they might nest there again this year, as they have for the past 2 years. Unlike many of their kind which choose nesting sites high in dead trees in marshes, our Great Blues seem to prefer to nest low in clumps of live Red Maple trees. That makes them really hard to see, despite their large size. Even harder to see are American Bitterns, Virginia Rails, and Soras; all of which have arrived back at White Memorial this month. Our first (and only so far this year) American Bittern was seen in the N. Shore Marsh adjacent to the Litchfield Town Beach on the 7th. Our first Virginia Rail of 2011 appeared at Little Pond on April 8th. In some past years we have seen our first one as early as March 18th. In the past few days as many as 5 Virginia Rails have been seen or heard there, despite flooded conditions. I had 5 (probably different ones) at Hamill Marsh this past Saturday, 4/23, along with our first Sora of the year. This is the earliest date of spring arrival at White Memorial that I can ever recall. Last year, we saw our first one 4/30. The Virginia Rails will stay here to breed as long as the flooding subsides. They nest low in cattails, so they are very vulnerable to flooding. For the past several years one or two pairs of Soras have exhibited some breeding evidence at Little and/or Cemetery Ponds. About 4 years ago we saw newly fledged young at Cemetery Pond. From 5/1 through 8/31 we try to survey for wetland birds in our marshes. We focus most of our efforts on Little Pond, but we should try to get to all of our marshes over the course of the breeding season. To that end, our readership can help by reporting any wetland birds that they encounter on White Memorial property. I usually go out in the evening to survey for these birds, and I welcome help.

Wildlife Management and Inventorying Activities, 4/14/11

Red-tailed Hawk photo by Leo Kulinski, Jr.

from whalesandwolves.com Sharp-shinned Hawk photo by Darlene Knox Eastern Bluebird photo by Bob Stanowski

Bluebird nest box photo by Dave Rosgen

Yesterday, 4/14/11, Volunteers John Eykelhoff, Jim Kandefer, and Bob Stanowski assisted me with bluebird nest box maintenance and monitoring and a wide variety of wildlife surveying. Most of the time this type of field work is a case of multi-tasking. While working on the bluebird boxes we frequently scanned the skies for raptors, looked around the fields and edges for other birds and mammals, and listened for any birds or frogs than might be calling. Since it was a nice, sunny, warm day there was a constant concert of bird and frog sounds to enjoy. This included our first Northern Leopard Frogs of the season at the Litchfield Town Beach and in the Icehouse Marsh. Our first Common Snapping Turtles of the year also appeared today. Gerri Griswold and Lee Cook saw a huge one moving very slowly in the Bantam River and I saw a big one sticking its head out of Bantam Lake's N. Bay. Our third first-of-the-year animal found this day was a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher behind the Campground Store. Hawk migration activity was very good, with the best viewing being from the Bantam River Field. While replacing a rotted wooden bluebird box pole with a new metal one and replacing a cracked bluebird box front door we saw 3 Ospreys, a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a Broad-winged Hawk fly over. Turkey Vultures and the resident pair of Red-tailed Hawks were also circling around overhead. These, and 3 other pairs of Red-tails seen elsewhere this day, were engaged in courtship activity. Migrant songbirds seen included Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Eastern Bluebirds were seen at 4 nest box locations, and one of the boxes had a complete nest in it already. Tree Swallows were abundant everywhere. They were joined by a Barn Swallow in the Icehouse Field and N. Rough-winged Swallows at Wheeler Hill, the Bantam R. Field, and Cemetery Pond. Bantam Lake produced lots of action. This included at least 5 Ospreys fishing. Three of them were successful while we watched them, but one promptly lost its catch of a Northern Pike when an adult female Bald Eagle chased and scared it. The Pike disappeared when it hit the water, and the eagle failed to retrieve it. In addition to this eagle, an adult male (possibly her mate) was perched in a White Pine on the east shore, a 3rd-year immature female was flying around and then perched in a tree in N. Shore Marsh, and a 2nd-year immature male was perched in a White Pine at the tip of Lennox Hill Pt. He was being mobbed by American Crows for awhile. Bob was able to get really good Digiscoped photos of these eagles, so I will use them to do a future blog about the ways to determine the ages of immature and subadult Bald Eagles. While the eagles posed for photos, an immature Northern Harrier flew past us and disappeared into N. Shore Marsh, 7 Rusty and many Red-winged Blackbirds called from trees in the Marsh, 2 Green-winged Teal and 3 Wood Ducks swam along the shoreline, and 21 Double-crested Cormorants lazed on the stone blocks in N. Bay. Finally, we ended the day with 3 American Woodcock calling and displaying at dusk at Cemetery Pond. If you take a trip out to these locations, especially in the late afternoon and evening, you may very well be rewarded with these same sights and sounds of nature.

Ospreys have returned to Bantam Lake

Juvenile Osprey photographed by

Bob Stanowski at Bantam Lake's Outlet

in October, 2010

Adult Osprey with a Northern Pike

photographed by Bob Stanowski

at White Memorial's Pike Marsh

in April, 2007

Adult Osprey photographed by

Darlene Knox in Florida

in March, 2011

We recorded White Memorial's first Osprey sighting of 2011 this past Saturday, 4/2, at the Litchfield Town Beach. The bird flew in from the Bantam Lake Inlet with a 12" (or so) fish that appeared to be a White Sucker. We think that this was the correct identification of this fish species, even though we didn't see its head, because its body was slim, and it had a white belly, greenish-brown sides, and a deeply forked tail. This latter body part flapped up and down for close to 10 minutes while we watched the Osprey slowly consume the fish from the head on back while it perched on a tree branch about 100' from us. Unfortunately, neither of us had a camera with us. An Osprey that was seen in the same area the next day and frequently yesterday could have either been this bird or a different one. We also have no way of knowing whether this bird is a resident back on territory or a migrant passing through since very few of these birds are fitted with colored and lettered or numbered leg bands. Though many young Ospreys are banded as nestlings at coastal sites from Maine to Florida every year, they are only fitted with a silver U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service band on the right leg. They do carry serial numbers, but the bands are next to impossible to read, even with the best spotting scopes. By contrast, some of the colored leg bands on Bald Eagles do have letter and number combinations that can be read with a good scope. Also, a sizable and increasing number of young Ospreys are being produced from nesting pairs at inland bodies of water, especially in New York, northern New England, and Canada. These birds are seldom banded due to the combination of the shear number of birds involved, nest site accessability issues, and a low number of Federally-licensed banders. Getting back to the Ospreys at Bantam Lake and elsewhere around White Memorial, it is interesting to note that we almost always see our first one of the year around 4/1, give or take 3 days. This has been the case for the past 15 years. Over this time span we have seen a steadily increasing number of these birds passing through here northbound in the spring and southbound in the fall. Starting about 6 years ago, one or two Ospreys were seen with some regularity around Bantam Lake's N. Bay during the months of June and July. Since the breeding season for these birds is typically from early April through late July in CT., the birds around here could have been establishing a breeding territory. That was confirmed in late April of 2009 when I saw them carrying sticks into a clump of rather short Red Maples in the N. Shore Marsh. For such large birds with a large nest they remained amazingly well-hidden. We didn't find out the outcome of this nesting attempt until late July when a fledgling appeared with the adults on the east side of this marsh. They were seen a few times before they departed in late August. In 2010, the Ospreys returned, but moved farther up the Bantam River from Bantam Lake by at least a quarter mile. This may have been due to the pair of Bald Eagles becoming increasingly territorial at the Lake. Bald Eagles and Ospreys do not get along well with each other. We saw stick-carrying by the Ospreys in late April, and a fledgling with them a few times in late July and early August, indicating a second year of successful nesting by these birds. It will be interesting to see if they threepeat in 2011.