Excellent Birds with the Connecticut Young Birders' Club

Where can you see a South American Fork-tailed Flycatcher, a Mexican Cave Swallow, and Canadian  Common Eiders and Lapland Longspurs, all on the same day? Why, Connecticut, of course!

The first field trip of the recently created CT Young Birders' Club was on Sunday, to Hammonasset State Park in Madison, with possibly a few other stops thrown in, time permitting.

Our first stop was the parking lot of Hammonasset, which held a large flock of Horned Larks (including some with very white eyebrows- lark subspecies id, anyone?), a slightly smaller flock of Snow Buntings, and 2 Lapland Longspurs, all birds that are easy to see at Hammo, but, especially in the case of the Longspur, tricky to see at most places. The yellow-and-black faces and odd running gait of the larks, the huge white wing patches of the buntings, and the bold striped pattern of the longspurs make this trifecta fun to watch.

At the water, we scoped out many Common and Red-throated Loons, a Surf Scoter, two White-winged Scoters, 8 Common Eiders. Shorebirds were common on the rocks and jetties, with one Purple Sandpiper along with the more common Dunlin, Sanderlings, Black-bellied Plover, and Ruddy Turnstones.

Land birds in the thickets and brush were somewhat scarce, but included Yellow-rumped Warbler, American Tree Sparrow, and Hermit Thrush.

Leaving Hammonasset, we headed to a Sewage Treatment Plant (sewage = good birds) in New Haven, at East Shore Park. There are more insects there than anywhere else at this time of year (the warmth from the plant, I think), and as a result there are often late warblers and swallows, insectivores that would not usually be around this late in the year.

Our targets were Cave Swallows, a bird that breeds in Texas, Arizona, and Mexico, and winters in  Central America. That is, most winter in Central America. Some end up on the east coast, where they find food at places like East Shore Park. And sure enough, there were two Cave Swallows swirling overhead not long after we arrived- a life bird for me. There were also a lot of warblers around for the time of year. In addition to the expected Yellow-rumped, there were an American Redstart, Blackpoll Warbler, and 2 Pine Warblers. Others had seen Blue-headed Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and a couple more warblers earlier in the day.

Everyone would have been satisfied with the Cave Swallows and the other good birds, but we made one last stop on the way back to Greenwich- Cove Island Park, new home of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, a South American bird 3000 miles from where it should be.

I had seen the forktail Saturday, but it was nice to see it again, and I actually got better looks this time. An excellent bird, and a great way to end an extremely successful first field trip.

I didn't really take many photos,(Alex Burdo and Benjamin Van Doren did though- check out their blogs here and here)but here is a very bad photo of both of the Cave Swallows overhead:

I'm weighing whether that can even be considered a record shot - if I hadn't labeled it, would you be able to id the birds? I'm not a photographer, and the good bird, awful photo tradeoff is fine with me.

Birding Stratford, Connecticut

A couple weekends ago I went on a Greenwich Audubon field trip to Stratford, Connecticut with Benjamin (Blog) and Ryan, lead by Brian O'Toole. Our first stop was the Great Meadows area of the Important Bird Area there.

We found a couple harriers, including a "gray ghost" male, and a buteo that we thought at first was a rough-legged hawk but turned out to be a wintering Red-shouldered Hawk. A little ways down the trail, we came across a large group of American Tree Sparrows, and I spotted a bald eagle flying over.

A shot of one of the harriers:

Of course its an eagle, can't you tell?:

We went out onto an overlook over the marsh to look for snowy owls, but all we found were black ducks.

Moving onward to Long Beach, we made a quick stop that netted a Gadwall but was otherwise unproductive. Benjamin was hoping for some Lapland Longspurs that had been reported. I was hoping for an Orange-crowned Warbler.

We scanned the sound for a little. A small group of Common Goldeneye were spotted, but that was it. My horned grebe curse continues. The wind picked up, and on a narrow strip of land with water on both sides, we were fairly exposed to it. Then we heard some call notes or something, and quickly spotted the Lapland Longspurs, 3 of them. An Ipswich (Savannah) Sparrow joined them. I had left my camera in the van, so no photos, but Benjamin got some: http://warblings.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/lapland.jpg

The orange-crowned warbler was not in its usual spot, and some people coming back told us it had been reported a ways out but they hadn't seen it. We figured that either it would take more time than we had to find it or it was dead, so that search was called off. On the way back to the car, I spotted a fly-by Killdeer.

The last stop in Stratford was a boat ramp where a Black-crowned Night-Heron had been seen. On the way there, we stopped at a pond where there were quite a few ducks, including Hooded Mergansers and Canvasback:

At the boat ramp, we first saw American Coots and Pied-billed Grebes, then walked over to the ditch where the night heron was sleeping. At least, we think it was sleeping. I never actually saw it move.

It just stayed in the same position for the whole time we were there. Still, I think it would have toppled over if it were dead.

We departed, but made a stop on the way back at Sherwood Island State Park to try to see a staked-out Saw-whet Owl. As soon as we entered the pine grove, a Great Horned Owl was on a branch right in front of us. It stared down for a second, then flew off. We searched unsuccessfully for the owl, but did see a couple Red-breasted Nuthatch.

Below: The tail-end of a Red-breasted Nuthatch.

Brian and Ryan went to check out a nearby pine grove, and they called us within 5 minutes- they had the bird. It happened to be in the exact same tree that Ryan had seen his life saw-whet a few years ago. It was a little hard to see, but we all ended up getting great views (And for me, some subpar photos).

See it?

Here's a very cropped photo:

It was a great trip, like any trip with an owl (let alone two) is. Also, given how early in the year it was, I saw 25 year birds. My year list is now up to 68.

Good Birding!