AAfCW 2015

We at the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (AAfCW) hope you have had a great offseason! As we gear up for spring and summer 2015 please save the date on Saturday, March 14th for 2015 shorebird stewardship volunteer training with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and AAfCW - Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. Location and time TBD. Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks to you in 2014 we helped the Connecticut population of Piping Plovers set an all-time record for the number of successfully fledged chicks at 116! Born from 51 pairs across Connecticut these young birds shattered the old state record of 101 fledged young in 2008. This is an astonishing success due to the efforts of over 400 volunteers across Connecticut and multiple partners including USFWS, CT DEEP, and AAfCW. We can also thank other partners including The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Bridgeport WildLife Guards. Assistance from municipalities along the shoreline and via private landowners also contributed to the cause.

Please share this accomplishment so that we can continue to spread the word on our waterbirds, retain volunteers and gain new stewards, and ensure funding for this critical conservation, education and outreach program. Only with your help both on the beaches and behind the scenes can we strive to make 2015 another banner year for the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds. Thank you again because none of this could happen without you! Please email ctwaterbirds@gmail.com to sign up as a volunteer.

Scott Kruitbosch
AAfCW Volunteer Coordinator

Bridgeport WildLife Guards

The Bridgeport WildLife Guards have a new website! Please check it out at: http://www.bridgeportwildlifeguards.org/

The WildLife Guards did a tremendous job in 2014 at the newly re-opened Pleasure Beach. They were able to help ensure a family of Piping Plovers fledged from a nest at the site for the first time in several years! Learn more about the program and see how you can get your child or student involved on the website. Look for them in Bridgeport and at Pleasure Beach once again for the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds in 2015.

Sandy Point IBA volunteers needed

We apologize for the short notice but volunteers are needed at an invasive plant removal at Sandy Point Important Bird Area (Sandy/Morse Points) in West Haven on Sunday, September 28 from 10AM-12PM. The West Haven Watershed Restoration Committee will be removing invasive plants as part of an IBA small matching grant. All help is appreciated. Bring work gloves, shovels, and water. Thank you so much!

Preliminary AAfCW 2014 stats

We wanted to provide you with some preliminary statistics from the 2014 Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds monitoring season from Audubon Connecticut and the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. These numbers are not from CT DEEP or USFWS and not official in that they reflect only AAfCW's data and information. The data is still changing as well - hours are still being accumulated, volunteers recruited, birds being recorded and so forth. There are some great success stories coming out of the 2014 nesting season and without your help none of this would have been possible!

• Piping Plovers pairs successfully fledged 97 young across Connecticut beaches in 2014, a sum that would be the second highest total ever for a year in the state! This very strong number included fledged birds from sites such as Short Beach in Stratford and Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport that had Piping Plovers as historic breeders but none in recent years.
• Over AAfCW 387 volunteers combined their efforts to put in 2,200+ hours of stewardship and monitoring, conservation surveys, education and outreach in Connecticut. Both of these totals will be increasing through the remainder of the year and are a testament to your devotion to the program!
• We surveyed and recorded 51 species of shorebirds, terns and long-legged waders at over 183 important sites in Connecticut including barrier beaches, offshore islands, tidal marshes, inland waterways, wet meadows, grasslands, and other critically important or endangered habitats.
• American Oystercatchers were discovered on 33 sites in Connecticut in 2014 with 124 individuals (42 breeding pairs, 40 non-breeding individuals) recorded. Those pairs successfully fledged 26 chicks. Nest failures took place at 20 of 42 nests, all believed to be due to predation, an issue we will continue to work on in future seasons. The good news is that there were no failures due to humans thanks to our collectively vigilant stewardship efforts.
• Least and Common Tern numbers are still being calculated after a difficult year for terns in general throughout all of the Northeast and much of the Atlantic. In our case we had low numbers attempting to nest - something beyond our control - and did have some decent productivity and a couple of success stories from specific sites thanks to the hard work of volunteers, staff, state officials and partners.

Thank you all so very much for your tireless work throughout the spring and summer and, for some of you, year-round! We at AAfCW will stay engaged throughout the year and are already preparing for the 2015 nesting season as well. As always please email us at ctwaterbirds@gmail.com if you have any questions, want to sign up to assist in other ways or are looking to join our efforts for the first time.

Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds thanks volunteers

On Monday evening, September 15, the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds held a thank you party for all of the tremendous volunteers who helped us conduct surveys, monitoring, stewardship, education and outreach across Connecticut in 2014. We thank the Town of Stratford and the Stratford Conservation Commission for allowing us to use the pavilion at Short Beach Park in Stratford.

There have been at least 2,200 hours logged by over 379 volunteers in the AAfCW program this year. We have seen 51 species of shorebirds, terns and long-legged waders at nearly 200 important sites in the state. Most importantly our headline species, the federally "threatened" Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus), is confirmed to have fledged 97 young in Connecticut in 2014 according to our counts. This is the second highest total ever recorded in the state for a season.

Below is Audubon Connecticut's Director of Bird Conservation Patrick Comins discussing some of these very numbers with party attendees.

 

Laura Saucier from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection also addressed the crowd and thanked them for all of their help in this very successful year.

Here's Audubon Connecticut Important Bird Area Coordinator Corrie Folsom-O'Keefe talking about some of this year's special programs including the Bridgeport WildLife Guards and Manomet's International Shorebird Surveys.

The sun set quickly and the temperature dropped rapidly on this gorgeous September evening as we already eagerly spoke of next season and then said our goodbyes for the night.

While the 2014 nesting season has ended our efforts continue throughout the year - conducting additional surveys, working to protect important habitat and improve critical sites for waterbirds. We will also be working tirelessly to continue to educate the public about why these birds matter and the significant role they play in our coastal ecosystems. Thank you once again to all of our amazing volunteers! If you want to join up as a citizen scientist in Connecticut please email ctwaterbirds@gmail.com and we will find the right spot for you.