Great Egrets Lingering

There have been plenty of Great Egrets spotted all over Connecticut in the last month. This individual was at a Stratford marsh last week.

We tend to think of them as a summer species with birds nesting in nearby colonies, but they arrive early in the late winter/spring, and stick with us through the autumn. Some are even found during Christmas Birds Counts! And the warmer it stays during winter, the easier it is for various long-legged waders to forgo migration and hang out with us, for better or worse.

Fall Forster's Terns

October can yield more than our songbird friends filling up the grasslands. A flock of Forster's Terns was feeding not too far from Stratford Point last week.

They were just north in the Housatonic River, hanging out with some Laughing, Ring-billed and Herring Gulls plus a handful of ducks (that are growing in number and diversity by the day). Keep an eye on the waters, especially during and after these October storms!