Report Southbound Flagged Plovers

While we are on the beaches monitoring waterbirds this August please be on the lookout for Piping Plovers bearing bands and flags. Migratory periods have the most potential for marked birds to be found in Connecticut. Information for reporting each flag color is provided below. Please cc both Laura.Saucier@ct.gov and ctwaterbirds@gmail.com with any reports, and feel free to email us with any questions.

Please include the following information with each report:

    Flag and band colors, location on each leg, and any alphanumeric codes on the flags.
    Location of sighting
    Date of sighting
    Any photo that shows the bands and/or flag
    Condition of legs

Please report flag colors and band combinations as follows:

• Green flags (coded and uncoded) on the upper leg:  Please send reports to  vt.plover@gmail.com.  Some of the green flags are coded with three alphanumeric characters, but other pipers carry an uncoded (plain) green flag along with lower leg bands. 
• Pink coded flags on the upper leg with two alphanumeric characters:  Please report to wgolder@audubon.org with a cc vt.plover@gmail.com.
• Orange flags (uncoded) and bands: Please report to plover@umn.edu.
• Color bands on only the upper legs and no flag:  Some of these have one band on each upper leg, some have two bands per upper leg. Please report to michelle.stantial@gmail.com with a cc to vt.plover@gmail.com.

Although the current U.S. Atlantic banders (who are extremely vigilant about this issue) confirm that they are not observing injuries nor hearing injury reports from resighters, please copy anne_hecht@fws.gov on any report that includes information about a leg injury on a Piping Plover carrying bands or other colored flags.  They also appreciate reports of "okay" banded/flagged legs if the observer was able to make a careful assessment of leg condition.

Thank you!

Visit Pleasure Beach

Have you visited Bridgeport's Pleasure Beach yet? If you are a birder, butterfly lover, or all-around naturalist, we encourage you to stop by soon via the water taxi! Getting to Pleasure Beach is easy with free parking at the water taxi pier lot, 91 Seaview Avenue, Bridgeport. The water taxi will bring visitors to and from Pleasure Beach, and is also free.

 

While there you can enjoy our WildLife Guards program, which trains, mentors, and employs ten local high schools students and two crew leaders to monitor nesting birds and engage visitors, families, and friends about Pleasure Beach and its wildlife. The WildLife Guards are at Pleasure Beach every Tuesday through Saturday, approximately 9:30 to 3:30, and offer the following walks and outreach events each week.

 

Wednesday
11:00am Coastal Ecology Walk
1:00pm Touch Tank

Friday
10:30am Bird Walk
12:00pm Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
1:30pm Plant Identification Walk

Saturday
10:30am Coastal Ecology Walk
11:30am Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
12:30pm Piping Plover Activity
1:30am Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
2:00pm Seine netting

Coastal Ecology Walk
On this walk along the shore, participants will learn about Long Island Sound, its barrier beaches, and wildlife, from Piping Plovers to Prickly Pear Cactus.  Barrier Beaches are a rare habitat is Connecticut.  They provide habitat for many state threatened species, protect shoreline communities from coastal storms, and offers a place for visitors to learn about nature.  This is a 1 mile walk along the beach.  Bring water and sunscreen and appropriate footwear.

Touch Tank
Want to learn about the marine creatures that call Pleasure Beach home?  Stop by the Touch Tank at the Info Depot to see and touch crabs, snails, mussels and more.  Bridgeport’s WildLife Guards will be on hand to share their knowledge about these intertidal inhabitants.

Bird Walk
Pleasure Beach provides nesting habitat for piping plovers and terns.  It is also serves as migratory stopover habitat for shorebirds, songbirds, and raptors.  Join the Bridgeport WildLife Guards for a 1 hour bird walk.  Binocular are available on a first come first serve basis.

Pleasure Beach Trail Walk
Did you know Pleasure Beach used to have an amusement Park?  Want to learn more?  Join the Bridgeport WildLife Guards for a tour of Pleasure Beach.  We will explore the history of this amazing place and see some wildlife too.

Plant Identification Walk
Pleasure Beach hosts a variety of flora, from the state listed Prickly Pear Cactus, to Northern Bayberry – a favorite of the Myrtle Warbler, to invasive plants like Oriental Bittersweet.  Some of these plants provide food for wildlife, while others are less nutritious and tend to take over.  Learn what you can plant in your own yard to benefit birds and other wildlife.

Piping Plover Activity
The Piping Plover, a federally threatened bird species, nests right on the shore of Pleasure Beach.   Because their nests and young are very camouflage, visitors might walk right up to them and not realize it.  During this kid-friendly program, we will learn about the little things people can do to help these birds nest successfully.  We will make marshmallow piping plover chicks and signs to increase awareness about these birds.

Seine-netting
Want to learn about the marine creatures that call Long Island Sound home?  Meet the Bridgeport Wildlife Guards on the beach at 2pm.  We will use a seine net to catch fish, shrimp and other animals that live in the water off shore of Pleasure Beach. 

 

This is education, conservation and advocacy in action, all in one wonderful program, reaching thousands of visitors over the summer and making a difference for rare or endangered plants and wildlife on Pleasure Beach. We hope you take the opportunity to visit and enjoy it!

Long Beach Trash

Another day, another pile of trash removed from the beaches by one of us. This time CT DEEP's Rebecca Foster snapped this shot of all the garbage, especially balloons, that she took off Stratford's Long Beach during one walk! As she noted you could probably do this multiple times a day at this point of the year and come up with the same sort of pile. Summer brings all sorts of parties and events and very little thought applied to where those balloons, or the rest of the trash that can blow away or is tossed aside, end up. Those of you reading this are already very environmentally conscious, but for others who may innocently not imagine where their trash goes or others who do not seem to care, please keep encouraging them to change their ways.

AAfCW 2015 Volunteer Update #17

This is the seventeenth weekly update by the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (AAfCW) for the 2015 season. Today's update includes reports of Piping Plover, American Oystercatcher, Least Tern and Common Tern from July 20 through 4:00 p.m. on July 27 with sightings of birds by volunteers and staff spanning that period.

Informational updates:

It is going to be a hot week with temperatures expected to be in the 90s tomorrow and likely through at least Thursday, with the dew point rising each day. This means it will be dangerous for you and the birds to be out monitoring during the peak heat of the day, so please watch the weather, take the proper precautions and monitor very early or very late if you plan on going out. We feel it is best to skip a monitoring session if the temperature is over 90.

Thank you to everyone who has been picking up bags of trash from our beaches throughout the season. Please keep letting us know how much you collect and remove from your monitoring trips, and tell us about any particularly problematic situations that require additional assistance in terms of cleaning up. As a staff and volunteer group we have removed dozens and dozens of bags of garbage this year from our beaches.

Lastly, as we enter August we still have nests that require our attention, hatchlings, fledglings and juveniles. There will be adults on the move more frequently. We still need your help and monitoring not only for the young birds but to track migratory staging areas, in getting counts of birds on the move, finding banded or flagged individuals that may suddenly appear, and educating beachgoers in a very beach-friendly time of the year. We will look to keep monitoring throughout all of August. Thank you!

Survey and monitoring updates:

Piping Plover
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/20
2 pairs, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling, 2 juveniles at Long Beach on 7/20
1 adult, 1 fledgling at Pleasure Beach on 7/20
2 pairs, 2 adults, 10 fledglings at Hammonasset on 7/21
3 juveniles at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/21
4 pairs, 1 adult, 6 hatchlings, 3 fledglings, 2 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/21
2 pairs, 1 adult, 3 hatchlings, 2 fledglings, 2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/21
2 pairs, 6 adults, 4 hatchlings, 16 juveniles at Milford Point on 7/21
2 adults, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling at Long Beach on 7/21
1 pair, 3 adults, 2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 adult, 1 hatchling, 3 juveniles at Long Beach on 7/22
6 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 adult, 3 hatchlings, 4 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
2 adults, 2 hatchlings, 1 fledgling at Long Beach on 7/22
1 adult, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/23
3 adults, 3 hatchlings, 11 juveniles at Milford Point on 7/23
1 adult, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/25
8 adults, 3 fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 adult, 3 fledglings at Bluff Point on 7/25
6 adults, 2 hatchlings, 2 fledglings, 5 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/26
2 juveniles at Bluff Point on 7/26
1 pair, 1 nest at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/27
1 fledgling at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

American Oystercatcher
1 pair at Long Rock off Griswold Island on 7/20
1 pair at Long Beach on 7/20
9 pairs, 1 adult, 13 juveniles at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
1 pair, 3 hatchlings at Hammonasset on 7/21
1 adult at Tuxis Island on 7/21
1 pair, 1 adult at Griswold Point on 7/21
1 pair, 3 hatchlings at Bluff Point on 7/21
3 pairs, 1 nest at Milford Point on 7/21
3 adults at Long Beach on 7/21
3 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 pair at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 pair, 2 hatchlings at Lewis Island, Thimbles on 7/23
2 adults at Thimble Islands on 7/23
1 pair, 5 adults, 1 nest at Milford Point on 7/23
2 pairs, 5 adults, 1 fledgling at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
1 pair, 2 juveniles at Channel Marker on 7/24
1 adult, 1 juvenile at Umbrella Island on 7/24
1 pair, 2 juveniles at Kelsey Island on 7/24
1 pair at Darrow Rocks on 7/24
1 pair at Great Captain's Island on 7/24
1 adult Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 pair at Griswold Point on 7/26
3 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

Least Tern
15 pairs, 30 adults, 6 hatchlings, 3 fledglings, 1 nest at Griswold Point on 7/21
5 pairs, 16 adults, 1 hatchling, 3 nests at Bluff Point on 7/21
1 pair, 11 adults at Bluff Point on 7/21
100 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
26 pairs, 18 adults, 20 nests at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/22
1 adult at Long Beach on 7/22
60 adults at Milford Point on 7/23
9 pairs, 3 adults, 3 nests at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
6 adults at Pleasure Beach on 7/25
40 adults/fledglings at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/25
1 pair, 8 adults, 2 hatchlings at Bluff Point on 7/25
20 adults, 2 fledglings at Griswold Point on 7/26
1 pair, 6 adults, 1 hatchling at Bluff Point on 7/26
50 adults at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/27

Common Tern
5 adults, 7 fledglings at Griswold Island on 7/20
9 adults at Sandy Point Island on 7/21
9 adults, 13 fledglings at Hammonasset on 7/21
40 adults, 10 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/21
2 adults, 1 fledgling at Bluff Point on 7/21
42 adults at Milford Point on 7/23
2 pairs, 1 adult at Sandy/Morse Points on 7/23
5 adults at Kelsey Island on 7/24
1 pair, 1 adult at Great Captain's Island on 7/24
2 adults at Shell Avenue Milford on 7/25
15 adults at Pleasure Beach on 7/25
105 adults, 15 juveniles at Griswold Point on 7/26

This concludes update #17 through 7/27/15 as of 5:00 p.m.

Beach Trash

This photo and information via one of our colleagues, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Shorebird Technician Audrey Wiese: “PLEASE dispose of your trash properly! This is the amount of trash I collected on ONE beach after only 3 hours! If you bring trash in take it out, if you buy plastic water bottles or balloons dispose of them PROPERLY! Loose trash on a beach does nothing for us and has a lasting effect on OUR environment and the animals that live in it.” That doesn’t seem like a very happy birthday…and congratulations to the grad as you help pollute the world they’re about to enter? Let’s change it for the better, please!