Tag Archives: Long Island Sound

Photos from Long Island Sound research cruise

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Hour photo/Chris Bosak Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk educators and visitors look at the haul from a net brought in from Long Island Sound during a cruise aboard the Aquarium's new research vessel RV Spirit of the Sound on Saturday afternoon.

Hour photo/Chris Bosak
Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk educators and visitors look at the haul from a net brought in from Long Island Sound during a cruise aboard the Aquarium’s new research vessel RV Spirit of the Sound on Saturday afternoon.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to join a research cruise of Long Island Sound aboard the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk’s new vessel Spirit of the Sound. It was the first day the nearly $3 million vessel took members of the public onto the water. (Yes, I was one of the first guests aboard, in case that ever comes up in a trivia questions.)

Anyway, I photographed the cruise for The Hour newspaper and I’ll add a link to the photo collection below.

Norwalk is lucky to have two nonprofits that offer cruises out among the Norwalk Islands. The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk and the Norwalk Seaport Association. To know something is to love something and these terrific organizations are dedicated to educating people about Long Island Sound, a vitally important ecosystem.

Here’s the link to more photos.

Hour photo/Chris Bosak Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk educator Nicole Rosenfeld shows off a spider crab caught in Long Island Sound aboard the Aquarium's new research vessel RV Spirit of the Sound on Saturday afternoon.

Hour photo/Chris Bosak
Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk educator Nicole Rosenfeld shows off a spider crab caught in Long Island Sound aboard the Aquarium’s new research vessel RV Spirit of the Sound on Saturday afternoon.

Long-tailed Ducks in transition

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Photo by Chris Bosak A pair of Long-tailed Ducks in transition plumage swims in Long Island Sound, April 2015.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A pair of Long-tailed Ducks in transition plumage swims in Long Island Sound, April 2015.

Here’s a shot of a pair of Long-tailed Ducks transitioning from their mostly white winter plumage to their mostly dark summer plumage. Some birds looks the same year-round and some birds look different in the summer and winter. Most ducks (but not all) go through a few different plumages as the year goes on.

These Long-tailed Ducks (formerly Oldsquaw) will be heading to their Arctic breeding grounds soon. When they are along coastal New England in the winter, we see their white plumage. It’s one of the few birds, in my opinion anyway, that look more decorated in the winter than in the summer. Take the Common Loon for instance. It sports its famous black-and-white spotted plumage in the summer, but changes to a much more drab grayish plumage in the winter.

We are lucky to have many Arctic nesters spend their winters in New England. It’s interesting to see their plumage transitions, giving us a glimpse of what they look like when they are “up north.”

Brant, Brant and more Brant

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Photo by Chris Bosak A large flock of Brant at Calf Pasture Beach, April 2015.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A large flock of Brant at Calf Pasture Beach, April 2015.

I love seeing Brant along Long Island Sound. It’s fascinating knowing a bird that is so close in the winter will be spending its summer in the Arctic. Of course, lots of birds we see in New England during the winter _ especially waterfowl _ nest far north of here, but few are as easily seen as Brant.

Brant, which look similar to Canada Geese but are smaller and have different markings, gather in massive flocks along parts of Long Island Sound from late fall to early spring. Many Brant are Continue reading →

Connecticut Osprey and how you can help

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

Here’s a recent column I wrote for The Hour newspaper in Norwalk, Conn. Most of the Osprey have returned to New England by now and Connecticut Audubon is once again holding its Osprey Nation program whereby citizens monitor the nests of “fish hawks.” There are now dozens of Osprey nests along Continue reading →

Hard to watch ducks when Long Island Sound is frozen

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Photo by Chris Bosak Long Island Sound is mostly frozen on Feb. 21, 2015, as shown by this scene from Weed Beach in Darien, Conn.

Photo by Chris Bosak
Long Island Sound is mostly frozen on Feb. 21, 2015, as shown by this scene from Weed Beach in Darien, Conn.

Birdwatching makes New England winters that much more bearable for me. I love the winter ducks that come down from the Arctic, Canada and northern New England and overwinter on Long Island Sound: Long-tailed Ducks, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneye and the like. Not to mention the other fowl like loons and grebes.

But it’s a little hard to watch ducks like this …

In my 16 years living near the coast of Connecticut I’ve never seen Long Island Sound be frozen. I’ve heard stories from oldtimers about Long Island Sound freezing over, but I’ve never seen it. Until now.

This morning (Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015) I brought my spotting scope down to Weed Beach in Darien, Conn., to check out the ducks. I didn’t even have to get the scope out of the car. Long Island Sound was frozen. Where kids swim in the summer and ducks swim in the winter, it was completely frozen. Ice as far as I could see. A small pool of water connecting Darien and Stamford and feeding Holly Pond was unfrozen and held a few Bufflehead and Red-breasted Mergansers, but that was it. The rest was ice.

Saturday was warm (relatively speaking, about 30 degrees) and Sunday is supposed to be even warmer (around 40), but Monday we are right back into single digits. We’ll see how the Sound reacts. I’d sure like to see my ducks again.

 

Clearing out my 2014 photos, take 6: Brant

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Photo by Chris Bosak A flock of Brant swims in the marshlands of Milford Point in Milford, Conn., April 2014.

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.

Not a turkey, but a nice Thanksgiving sighting

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Photo by Chris Bosak A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound in Darien on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 27), 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound in Darien on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 27), 2014.

I took my boys Andrew and Will on our annual Thanksgiving Duck Hunt (actually a watch) on Thursday. Time was short this year so we hit only a few of our regular spots and no true freshwater ponds, so the number of duck species we found was way down. Our goal each year is 10 different species. This we only got five: Hooded Merganser; American Wigeon; Black Duck; Mallard; and Bufflehead. It was our worst effort in the eight years we’ve been doing it, but again, time was short and the time spent together is the main goal. So mission accomplished in that regard.

We did get a nice surprise at Weed Beach in Darien when a Common Loon made an appearance much closer to shore than usual. Loons are much more drab in the winter than they are in summer, but it’s a thrill to see this iconic bird regardless of the season.

Here are a few shots of the loon — a big, powerful bird — taken on a very gray day.

Oh, by the way, we did see a flock of turkeys on someone’s front yard.

Photo by Chris Bosak A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound on Thanksgiving Day, (Nov. 27), 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound on Thanksgiving Day, (Nov. 27), 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound on Thanksgiving Day, (Nov. 27), 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A Common Loon swims in Long Island Sound on Thanksgiving Day, (Nov. 27), 2014.

 

I’m trying to work on Labor Day, but it’s tough with these guys flying around

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

So I’m sitting here at The Hour office along the Norwalk River trying to get Tuesday’s pages out, but every five minutes one of these guys flies across my view. Love this time of year for Osprey sightings. More on that here.

Osprey flying with fish in talons

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Osprey flies with a fish at Milford Point in Milford, CT, June 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Osprey flies with a fish at Milford Point in Milford, CT, June 2014.

I saw the shadow in the sand and knew it was something big. I wheeled around and saw the Osprey flying with the fish and scrambled to try to get the bird in the view finder of my camera. I didn’t nail the photo by any stretch of the imagination, but the scene was pretty neat so I figured I’d share the subpar photo anyway.

This Osprey was photographed at Milford Point in Milford, CT, on Monday, June 16. It was flying the large fish back to its nest not far from the beach. The fish was plucked from Long Island Sound.

Osprey catch their fish and in midair adjust the catch in their talons to make it more aerodynamic.

White-winged Scoter hanging out with shorebirds

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Photo by Chris Bosak A White-winged Scoter rests on the beach as a Ruddy Turnstone shares the area at Coastal Center at Milford Point on Monday, May 12, 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
A White-winged Scoter rests on the beach as a Ruddy Turnstone shares the area at Coastal Center at Milford Point on Monday, May 12, 2014.

While doing my weekly volunteer shorebird monitoring at Coastal Center at Milford Point, I came across a surprise bird on the beach. A White-winged Scoter, usually a bird I see in the distance on the waters of Long Island Sound during the winter, was sitting on the beach with dozens of little (in comparison) shorebirds.

It was an odd scene to see the scoter resting on the beach as Ruddy Turnstones, Dunlin and Semipalmated Plovers scampered all around it.

Scoters are large sea ducks. Three types are seen along the New England coast: Surf; Black; and White-winged.

The day also included sightings of Peregrine Falcon (a young one sitting on the beach), Least Terns, Brant, American Oystercatcher, Piping Plover, Lesser Yellowlegs, and other shorebirds.

Photo by Chris Bosak White-winged Scoter at Milford Point, Connecticut, May, 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
White-winged Scoter at Milford Point, Connecticut, May, 2014.