Photo by Chris Bosak
A Carolina Wren searches on the snow-covered ground for food in New England, Feb. 2015.
I know I just featured Carolina Wrens in a recent post, but I couldn’t resist posting a few more photos. I’ve seen these beautiful wrens on suet feeders and platform feeders, but I hadn’t seen them looking for food under feeding stations before. Severe weather can cause Continue reading
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Red-tailed Hawk at Weed Beach in Darien, Conn., Jan. 2015.
Here’s the first of a two-part post about a Red-tailed Hawk I found at Weed Beach in Darien, Conn., last week. These photos will show the hawk with gusts of wind blowing its plumage.
I was focused on a tree near the beach that had a White-breasted Nuthatch and a Downy Woodpecker in it. I thought I was getting good shots of the nuthatch, but when I checked the screen on my camera, the results were always subpar. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong, but I just wasn’t nailing it. Then I looked in an adjacent tree and spotted a much larger subject. Since I had been in that spot for several minutes, the hawk clearly did not mind that I was there. I gave up on the nuthatch and turned my attention toward the Red-tailed hawk.
I took several photos of the hawk in the tree and it eventually flew to a nearby structure where I was able to get a few more shots as the hawk seemingly watched a foursome play paddle tennis. The wind was whipping pretty good that day, making for some interesting shots of the hawk. The next posting (coming in the next day or two) will show the hawk under calmer conditions.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Red-tailed Hawk at Weed Beach in Darien, Conn., Jan. 2015.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Red-tailed Hawk at Weed Beach in Darien, Conn., Jan. 2015.
Photo by Chris Bosak
Don Crockett of Project SNOWStorm talks about Snowy Owls at a presentation at Milford City Hall on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015.
(Here’s a little something I wrote up about a presentation on Snowy Owls I attended on Sunday. The event “The Hidden Lives of Snowy Owls” was presented by Don Crockett and sponsored by Connecticut Audubon.)
Last winter Snowy Owls enthralled the U.S. Even casual birdwatchers couldn’t help but be caught up in the historic irruption of the beautiful, yet powerful Arctic bird of prey.
The birds made their way down from their Arctic breeding grounds in record numbers during the winter of 2013-14. Birdwatchers flocked to beaches to try to find the owls. Unlike most winters, the birdwatchers were often successful in catching a glimpse of an owl.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Snowy Owl sits on a sign at The Coastal Center at Milford Point in early March 2014.
While Snowy Owls can remain in one spot for hours on end, they do move around quite a bit, during the day and night. So where do the owls go when they aren’t under the watchful eye of birdwatchers? What do they do at night when even the best spotting scope can’t keep track of their whereabouts?
Information about what Snowy Owls do when they come down to the United States is valuable because it gives us a better understanding of these mysterious birds. As Arctic breeders, the more we know about them the better as we continue to grapple with the effects of climate change. They may offer clues as to the extent to which climate change is impacting our world.
To help gather more information on these owls, a group of volunteers started Project SNOWstorm last year. The project involves trapping Snowy Owls with a net and attaching a transmitter to each owl’s back using a harness. The transmitter is lightweight (about 40 grams) and the harness is designed to not effect an owl’s flight. The transmitters are solar-powered, which reduces the weight as no batteries are required, and use the cellular phone network as opposed to satellites. Using the Continue reading
Photo by Chris Bosak
A female Downy Woodpecker perches next to a birdfeeder in New England, Jan. 2015.
Yesterday (Saturday) coastal southern New England had its first significant snow of the year. And even so, it wasn’t that much of an event as we woke up to about four inches of snow and nothing else fell during the day (except some light rain off and on). But it was nice to see snow finally (I’m sure not everyone shares that opinion) and, for me, that always means checking out the feeding stations for photos opps.
I didn’t do so well in that department as the birds were surprisingly somewhat scarce. White-throated Sparrows were the most plentiful species, with 10 to 12 under the feeders at all times. A Downy Woodpecker showed up frequently, too. There were infrequent visits from cardinals, juncos and titmice. That’s about it. The Carolina Wren Continue reading
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Carolina Wren perches on a feeder in New England in January 2015.
I was sitting in my bedroom doing some work on the computer when I heard a familiar song behind me. It wasn’t coming from the clock radio. It wasn’t even that type of song. It was a bird song, of course, and it was being belted out richly by a Carolina Wren.
“Tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle!” Loud and strong.
It was nice to hear the song. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard a lot of birdsong in New England. I’ve heard plenty of bird calls — non-melodic chips often coming from cardinals and White-throated Sparrows — but not a lot of songs. But this Carolina Wren was in full voice. Why? I’m not exactly sure. I’ve heard Carolina Wrens sing in the winter before, plenty of times. My guess is that it’s territorial posturing. That’s part of why birds sing in the spring, mostly over breeding territories. I think this wren was protecting his feeding station.
(Story continues below, with more photos, too.)
Photo by Chris Bosak
A flock of Brant swims in the marshlands of Milford Point in Milford, Conn., April 2014.
Here’s my next photo in the series of 2014 photos that I never got around to looking at and posting.
Here’s a small flock of Brant I saw in the spring of 2014. At certain locations along the coast of southern New England, Brant flocks can number in the hundreds along Long Island Sound. At Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk, Conn., the Brant flock pushes 1,000 birds or more.
Brant look somewhat similar to Canada Geese, but are smaller. A few individual Brant hang around New England through May and into June, but most of them return to their nesting grounds in the Arctic by March or April. It’s nice that they come visit us each winter.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An Orange-crowned Warbler seen at Oyster Shell Park in Norwalk, Conn., during Christmas Bird Count, Dec. 2014.
During the Christmas Bird Count last week I found an Orange-crowned Warbler on my last stop of the day. It was a good bird for the Count and, for me, the first time I had seen one. It was a good way to end 2014, gaining a “life” bird. I’m not big on lists and do not even have an official “life list,” but I do know in my head what I’ve seen and what I haven’t seen. And I know I hadn’t seen an Orange-crowned Warbler before.
So what will 2015 bring in terms of new birds? I guess we will have to wait and see. The bird I’d like to see in 2015 is a Spruce Grouse. It’s a boreal bird so the only chance I have to see one is during a camping trip to northern New England or Canada. I hope to get in at least two camping trips up north in 2015, so we’ll see. I have, however, been looking for them on my camping trips for years and years and have never found one. Maybe this will be my year.
So what’s on your bird wish list for 2015? Leave a comment here, Facebook comment or email me your top bird(s) that you want to add to your life list in 2015.
Oh, and good luck getting it.
Photo by Chris Bosak
An Orange-crowned Warbler seen at Oyster Shell Park in Norwalk, Conn., during Christmas Bird Count, Dec. 2014.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Great Blue Heron stands on a dock near the Norwalk River on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Some try to stick out the New England winters and some fly south where it’s warmer. That can be said for several species of birds, but for this posting I’m talking about Great Blue Herons. The pictured bird was found earlier this week near Veterans Park in Norwalk, Conn.
It’s an interesting dilemma for the birds. What gives the better chance of survival? Sticking out a New England winter and subsisting on the small fish to be found, or risking the perils of migration and moving to a warmer climate? Both have their risks, of course. A particularly cold winter can spell doom for the herons that stay around. However, the risks Continue reading
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Red-bellied Woodpecker visits a suet feeder during a snow storm.
Here’s my latest For the Birds column that appeared in last week’s The Hour (Norwalk, Ct) and this week’s The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. It is about the northward movement of the territory of the Red-bellied Woodpecker, a large and handsome woodpecker that has been common in southern New England but scarce in middle New England. That seems to be changing.
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Hermit Thrush perches on a branch at Selleck’s/Dunlap Woods this fall.
Here are a few more photos of Hermit Thrushes, a species profiled in my last post a few days ago. Also below is a link to my latest For the Birds column, which appears weekly in The Hour (Norwalk, CT) and The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.)
Photo by Chris Bosak
A Hermit Thrush rests on a log at Selleck’s/Dunlap Woods this fall.
Birds of New England.com 