January 27, 2011

Snow, snow and more snow. But as February approaches, the likelihood of some comparatively mild days – let’s say 25 to 30 degrees, perhaps even with sunshine – is there. Perfect for winter eagle watching.

Veteran birder Steve Kotchko of Wethersfield scanning the Connecticut River for bald eagles from the Haddam shore. Click to enlarge.

Connecticut has a very small but slowly growing year-round population of eagles, maybe two dozen birds last I knew, but in winter the population grows dramatically as eagles from Canada and Maine stream in during early winter looking for open water.

The Connecticut and Housatonic rivers are two prime winter habitats for these grand birds that feast on fish, but will eat many other things, including an unwary duck. They want open water for hunting, and they will be gone come spring.

This year long stretches of the Connecticut and Housatonic are frozen, pushing the birds into areas of open water, especially at the mouth of the Connecticut at Essex, Old Saybrook and Old Lyme.

My monthly Walkabout column in The Hartford Courant appears on the cover of its Living section tomorrow, Friday, January 28, with suggestions on where to access the Connecticut River to get a look at eagles. It also includes information on a couple of organized eagle watching opportunities – eagle watching boat tours out of Haddam sponsored by the Connecticut Audubon Society and the Bald Eagle Observation Area run by FirstLight Power Resources at its Shepaug Hydroelectric Dam in Southbury on the Housatonic River.

January 5, 2010

Snowshoeing is great exercise, and a yoga session afterwards is special. Click to enlarge.

We’ve got snow left from the Christmas weekend storm. More snow is coming Friday. A few inches at least would be nice, because this Saturday morning, January 8, yoga teacher Leslie Gordon and I will be leading a snowshoe outing at the McLean Game Refuge in Granby, Ct., followed by yoga at the Enlightened Way Wellness Center in the Tariffville section of Simsbury, which is nearby.

The McLean Refuge is a special place, laced with trails, including lots of pine and hemlock to add fresh color to the winterscape. We plan on following a trail that is almost entirely flat, and follows a brook. We’ll tromp through the snow for about 90 minutes, look for some of the winter bird species, take some photos, enjoy the day together.

By the way, if you haven’t tried yoga after a hike or snowshoe outing, you’re missing something. It is superbly restorative. You’ll leave Enlightened Way with a glow.

Details are available at the Enlightened Way website. Bring your own snowshoes, or rentals are available at many Eastern Mountain Sports shops. If the snow is too spotty, we will convert this to a hike in the McLean Refuge.

Hope you can join us.

December 20, 2010

Wethersfield, Ct.

For 23 years, nearly a quarter century, the Capitol Bird Club has covered Wethersfield for the National Audubon Christmas Bird Count, overseen locally by the Hartford Audubon Society.

Judd Everhart, left, and Steve Kotchko birding along the Connecticut River in Wethersfield, Ct., as part of the National Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Click to enlarge.

We’ve seen it all weather-wise, from nor-easter storms with inch-an-hour snowfall, to rain, or fog, or temperatures in the single digits. Saturday, the 2010 Christmas Count for the Hartford area, could not have been more comfortable, at least for a December day. Temperatures reached the mid-30s by mid-morning, with bright sunshine and no wind. Parkas were unzipped by late morning.

We’ve come a long way since the late 1980s, when our total species count often was only in the high 20s. Most of us were novice birders then. Now, we routinely hit 35 or more species in a morning, devoting most of our time to the woods and meadows along the Connecticut River.

The Capitol Bird Club, by the way, is a small club formed in the mid-80s by a group of journalists at the Connecticut State Capitol who were interested in birds and birding. On hand for the count yesterday were Steve Kotchko, Judd Everhart, Bob Capers, Susan Kinsman, Alan Ponanski and myself.

A ring-necked pheasant spotted beside the Connecticut River Saturday. Click to enlarge.

This year we saw 41 species, better than last year’s 36, just shy of the 43 species we logged in 2008. The unofficial total for the entire Hartford area Christmas count this year is 89 species. Our colleagues across the river in Glastonbury picked up several hard-to-get species, including long-eared owl, short-eared owl and Lincoln’s sparrow.

Our list for Wethersfield: Canada goose, black duck, mallard, common merganser, ring-necked pheasant, great blue heron, sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper’s hawk, red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk, ring-billed gull, herring gull, greater black-backed gull, rock pigeon, mourning dove, belted kingfisher, red-bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, blue jay, crow, black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, Carolina wren, eastern bluebird, American robin, mockingbird, starling, American tree sparrow, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, white-throated sparrow, dark-eyed junco, cardinal, red-winged blackbird, house finch, goldfinch, house sparrow.