Mattabeseck Audubon Society Trip Reports

Our Mission: The Mattabeseck Audubon Society, a chapter of the National Audubon Society, is committed to environmental leadership and education for the benefit of the community and the earth's biodiversity.

deKoven House, 27 Washington Street, Middletown, Connecticut 06457

0800 The sun was curious, too, and peeped over the shoulders of the four “birders” who gathered together in the gravel parking lot adjacent to a soccer field.

The soccer field was empty and silent, but was soon to be a scene of controlled chaos as exuberant children and their invigorated parents dotted the playing surface and lifted strident voices as they prepared for the games.

The four avian-seekers, however, stood silently contemplating the undulating field of a different standard: a bristling landscape of goldenrod and mugwort, abbreviated with brush strokes of autumn olive, cottonwood saplings and a dozen other types of shrubs and invasive plants.

While the tiny athletes chased after a spherical leather ball, legs and arms akimbo, the birders puckered their lips and whispered “pish, pish” in order to get the winged and feathered objects of their focus to rise to the top of the diverse landscape.

Like photons of light flashing off the windshields of parked cars the birds rose and fell, rose and fell, rarely holding a position long enough to be identified. Eventually, experience and steady hands gripping the binoculars produced results: song sparrow, savannah sparrow, white-throated sparrow and palm warbler were duly registered.

Strolling around the giant gravel mound covered with mugwort was rewarded by a flurry of activity; the birds alighted and fled from view in rapid order, gathered briefly in the shrub, flickered their wings and tails and then quickly insinuated themselves into the ground cover. White-throated sparrows dominated. A palm warbler and a common yellow-throated warbler made a mercurial appearance. The avians fled before the birders like the retreat of Napoleon’s army from Moscow.

The four suddenly stood abandoned with their binoculars hanging limply by their sides. The shouts of the children in the nearby soccer field echoed in their ears as the birders made for their cars to press on to the next stop. And these children didn’t have an inkling that right across the parking lot from where they screamed at play was one of Nature’s enduring mysteries: the perennial migration of feathered individuals, some weighing no more than a twenty-five cent piece; a migration immemorial.

0930 Arriving at the cinder-coated car-park of the Nature Garden with some anticipation, the birders soon realized that over-zealous maintenance had left the understory bereft of the usual pollinator fodder: the goldenrod, milkweed and wood aster jumble that was also fine habitat for migrant birds had been summarily mown.

The dogwoods still stood, however, and some of the taller trees had poison ivy vines clinging to them. The variegated ivy leaves glowed in the bright blue sunlight like red and yellow semaphores. Where there is poison ivy there are yellow-rump warblers, and the birders were not disappointed. The warblers flocked around the gargantuan arms of a white oak tree, broken though it was by time and the elements.

Following the crushed stone path that wound around the Nature Garden “pishing” and “shooshing” as they went, the group encountered little activity. The eastern red cedars were gone and the white dogwoods appeared stripped of fruit. But suddenly a large elusive bird like a shadow on a moon-lit night appeared in the distance and disappeared before anyone could identify it.

Walking out into an open field and surveying the startling blue sky revealed a trio of black vultures, their white wing patches and stunted tails a clear identifier. They whirled in the sky like school children liberated from their oppressive pedagogues.

It was quiet below in the grasses. The field looked as if a purple and crimson blanket had been wrapped around its shoulders. Turning back towards the cinder path the birders passed some children and their guardians who were hanging whimsical paper trinkets on the blue-black arms of eastern red cedars, while dog handlers strolled through the garden and yellow-rumped warblers gyrated on the limbs of the gargantuan oak. The air became mild and caused one to loosen the buttons on the woolen shirt-jackets. It was on to the final stop of the sparrow crawl.

1025 The Durham Meadows spread commodiously on all sides. Tufts of cool season grasses still had a figment of green color while the warm season blue-stem and deer-tongue donned a coat of bronze and ochre. Sitting co-operatively on a metal bar of a gate stood a female house finch. She stared at the birders meditatively. Was it a greeting? Or was it an inner dialogue: “What are these, and whither are they from, and what do they think?” Ah, such pathetic fallacy!

The birders strolled past the gate and into the open field beyond. The hedgerow was on the right. It was decided to follow a path and circumnavigate part of the field, returning later to the hedgerow.

Periodically scanning the tops of the goldenrod and silky dogwood they stirred up plentiful song sparrows that flitted into view and quickly disappeared. Near a red maple swamp bordering the pathway several swamp sparrows came into view, brown backsides and faint white bibs indicative of the species.

The birders were enveloped in maroon and scarlet shade. The wet ground compressed beneath their feet. They followed back to the hedgerow and walked parallel to it. More song and white-throated sparrows fluttered in the shrubs. A stream trickled lazily nearby, a convoluted snake obfuscated by mugwort and honeysuckle.

Out in the open once again. Quietude. Yet the sun and the blue marble sky, the burnished woodland in the distance and the tall, transforming grasses accepting of their approaching obsolescence was a gift of serenity in a violent world.

Salmon River to Leesville Dam – Plying the Stream-of-Consciousness, June 8, 2024

The globe, a luminescent blue orb, revolves and presents the day...clouds awakening on the northern horizon...blue highlights reflecting off of grey-green water...the wind blowing invisible kisses about the cheeks...the rise and fall of paddles dipping parallel to the pointed bows and blunted sterns...the tidal marshes’ shining brown skin exposed...the peltandra virginica and pontederia cordata naked in the sun... arrowwood winking its white flowers like semaphores...a shadow like a crumpled paper bag skims the river’s surface as an osprey wheels and banks...green ash, their skeletal arms held akimbo welcoming the tree swallows swooping about the entrance holes to their nests in figure eights...along the margins of the marsh ostrich, cinnamon and royal fern present their glossy emerald coats...green frogs play their banjos amongst the sedges...swards of yellow lilies lie as if gasping for air and sunlight rising between thick, round pads...the flaccid golden club, their cudgels smudged with detritus, sulk in the mud and await the return of the tide...a curvature of land looks out over the spreading cove, a wooded hillside where mountain laurel tumble down slope to the granitic schist and gneiss diving below the water and mud to fantastic depths...the hulls of the vessels slide over shallow channels...below, the round-backed musk turtle hunches as immobile as a shelled pea..the antediluvian mussels pucker their shells like brown lips and slide along the bottom on rubbery feet...the verdant hills...the paddlers in their leaf-like conveyances...a narrow channel, then an opening up of the stream...a mallard rises...a redwing blackbird ker-kerees!...again the granite shelves plunge to the depths and the hemlocks thrust bristling fingers over the water in a mute caress...cottages appear and hunch like mushrooms, their boat docks extended like wooden tongues...the sandy underside of the river rises up to lick the bottoms of the vessels...song sparrows flit amongst the spotted alders bordering the narrow spit of flood plain...passage beneath the cold arm of the highway bridge...a rocky, jagged riffle not yet submerged below the tide scrapes the undersides and the vessels struggle up stream...boulders like the grey humps of gigantic turtles‘ carapaces...swiftly flows the current...striving against it..reaching a calm pool...and thrusting forward, a last push...then a landing on a stone-strewn lip of sand...the dam lies like the stocky paws of the Egyptian Sphinx...the air resounds with the din of rushing water...there is an embankment to climb and views to be absorbed...and sensory inputs to sort out...the here and now...to have paddled a few hours but to have aged fifty years...beings as ephemeral as stone flies...that even as you sleep the water never stops flowing...the tide rises and ebbs...even as you dream, unaware of your stream-of-consciousness...

Four participants; numerous objects of biodiversity and streams of sensory stimulation

....Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears... Marc Antony, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

…For the ears must be as good and sharp as crystal and the eyes as perceptive as an eagle, while the neck in its extension must be as flexible as a giraffe’s. These are the attributes one needs to be able to discern the multitude of neotropical migrants, an inexorable flow of avians as ancient as DNA itself, spreading themselves northward.

Across the greening sward where the flowering shrubs offer shelter and the tall oaks and maples spread their lime-green crowns laden with caterpillars this panoply of instinct-driven birds, some weighing as little as a twenty-five cent piece, readily and gratefully descend. And waiting impatiently, cognizant of the impermanence of it all, were seven human beings, field guides and binoculars at the ready.

The blue cast of the sky accentuated the sun in its golden throne. Not a whisper of wind teased the catkins enfolding from the tips of the red oak branches. Somewhere across the roadway from the parking lot where the birders gathered an ovenbird’s prattling “tich!-tich!-tich! clearly resounded; again and again it repeated the notes.

Satisfied, the group proceeded to walk along the rail line, an iron utilitarian highway. Shrubs beckoned on either side where catbirds sprung up at the artificial “phishing” sounds the birders projected outward with pursed lips.

The birders slowly proceeded down either side of the tracks, now stopping to listen or to glance at the tree canopy that was almost eye level with the raised railroad bed. A wet seep punctuated with honeysuckle and spice bush revealed a common yellow-throat. Then a brown thrasher, as if exhumed from the dark earth itself, stood out in the open.

What once appeared to be nothing more than a pleasant spring walk suddenly erupted into activity. There were yellow-rump warblers flitting madly amongst the branches of oaks and then an orange messenger from the southern clime, a Baltimore oriole, was observed dangling from one of a poplar’s slender fingers.

The rail line opened up into the broad vista of a golf course. Tree swallows swooped over the water holes and acrobatically flew inches above the emerald fairway that lay like a sterile green tuxedo. Sweeping aside the golf course the group entered the trailing edge of River highlands Park.

With fine views of the Connecticut river the birders proceeded up and down the rolling pathway and peered at the tree canopy testing the flexibility of their neck muscles and encouraging one another to be on the lookout for great crested flycatchers. Black and white warblers appeared on the flanks of oaks and were duly noted.

Walking on the edge of the gravel embankment that fled downslope to the thin, brown beach lapped by the river’s foaming waves, the birders attentively cocked their ears and waited patiently. This finally paid dividends for there in the underbrush came the thin, staccato notes of a worm-eating warbler. It then permitted everyone a brief glimpse of its eye-stripe and diminutive body.

Steep descents were followed by precipitous climbs. More splendid views of the river. An osprey slalomed upriver on a breeze. Someone thought they heard a yellow-throated vireo. A low booming sound like roofers repairing sheathing on a house-top gave notice of the presence of a pileated woodpecker.

A winding, dry trail led back to the parking area. It was the dreamy time of mid-day, drowsy and tepid. Yet when the remaining birders approached a copse of red pine the Pine warblers usually found there did not disappoint, but readily responded to “phishing” while primarily staying hidden. As a bonus, in the understory a blue-wing warbler made its brief, but silent appearance.

An early morning rain like the last drops of a large tea cup being shaken out had left the needles of the looming pine trees glistening. Low hanging clouds looked down at the earth with knitted brows.
The gnarled path beneath the white pines was black with mud and numerous foot falls. Picking along the way and searching for spring flora the botanists observed asters and lily of the valley not yet in bloom; they were plentiful and gave promise for a colorful tomorrow.

Wavelets gyrated on the surface of the adjacent reservoir and kissed the shore with cold, moist lips. Numerous whitepine had fallen prey to the whim of winter storms, many lying broken and disheveled on the forest floor. Among the scaly branches and green, smothering needles trout-lily, or dog-tooth violet, rose their stalwart basal leaves and nodding, lily-like yellow flowers. Wild oats and the regal nodding trillium with their royal purple robes were interspersed throughout, valiantly proclaiming their presence on the vernal stage.

Pine warblers, the vanguard of the annual spring migration, trilled in the canopy of white pines. Leaving the copse of pines behind the botanists climbed to the crest of a plateau. There, at the feet of a broken talus slope was an extensive monoculture of dutchman’s breeches gathered around red oak trees or shyly rising between gaps in the basalt boulders. Bloodroot flowered there also, though mostly having reached their peak and fading, their large, fan-shaped leaves folded over spent petals in poignant denouement.

Trickles of water emanating from the crevices between the rocks moistened the cinder path. Rue anemone in bunches of two and three became the dominant flower. Dutchman’s breeches gathered alongside them, their white and yellow pantaloons complimenting the pure white petals of the rue anemone.

Downward. The trail followed beneath steep slopes that disgorged rock and soil. Clinging precariously there were sprigs of smooth rock cress, their stalks curved into a graceful “C” shape dangling flowers like tiny white bells.

Farther along the path more tree slash choked the slanting slopes of basalt where blue cohosh rose up, their black-purple arms held akimbo, not yet willing to blossom. Around their feet, however, spring beauty sent etherial pastel petals to the sky in wonderment and delight with themselves. Nodding trillium were woven into the jagged landscape determined not to miss the show.

Upslope, not to be outdone or ignored, was a gathering of tooth wart; their white flowers stood like a garland on a bride’s tiara.

Searching amongst the loose rock revealed the basal leaves of the ginger plant. Feeling gently with experienced hands exposed the reticent bell-shaped purple flower with its yellow stamen. There was a feeling of triumphant discovery of one of nature’s deeply held secrets.

After a difficult climb to the next level of the park along loose, jangled stone interspersed with streams of water and mud, a level plain was reached covered in rue anemone. Stepping off trail was rewarded with the discovery of round-leaved hepatica with purple petals and yellow stamens.

Finally, emerging prolifically from around moist rock outcrops were colonies of early saxifrage in peak bloom just waiting to be admired.

There was also a jamboree in the canopy as several migrant species of birds flitted from leaf bud to leaf flower: a blue-headed vireo and several yellow-rumped warblers.

Retracing down the scrambled path and looking skyward: the greyness had dissipated and benign clouds with large foreheads floated above the warming earth as the sun melted its way through the mist and proclaimed dominion over the spring landscape.

“What is it about the side of the mattress firm, where you were instructed to park your car, that you didn’t understand?” said I to the participant, who had to walk a distance to report her presence.
A variation of a dismissive, “Hoot toot, hoot toot,” came the reply.

And away we drove to the first stop, traditionally the two ponds adjacent to Research Parkway in Meriden.

On emerging from the cars and encountering the nearest pond that had a dam and spillway in the far corner, usually the least diverse body of water, we were surprised to see the number of Gadwalls intermingled with Black ducks and Mallards circling one another. They drifted towards the cattails thrust upwards from the near chore like spindly, ancient finger tips. Afar, near the spillway, were Buffleheads that dove and surfaced like the fluttering of eyelids covering and exposing the iris. A colossus by comparison, a regal white Mute swan spread its wings like the sails of a galleon and nodded its head that was like a figure head attached to a bowsprit.

We sprinted across the roadway and were greeted by honking as Canada geese fled from our presence, paddling quickly to attain a more comfortable distance.

The spotting scope was quickly set up. Squinting through the sight rewarded viewers with the brilliant colors of the male Green wing teal. Towards the back of the pond was a circling convoy of Ring necks sharing the grey water surface with diving Buffleheads and the rather bland Gadwalls. Just in front of the cattails, those mute brown observers of the migrating season, slowly sailed a Northern shoveler, the male’s bright orange flank lending its color to the subdued shade of the pond’s surface.

This was a satisfying panorama of diving, dabbling, almost meditative waterfowl set before us like a still life: “Ducks on a Pond”: 100 by 70 Cm. in oil.

The next stop was North Farms. The usual nasty cold bluster of early March was somewhat subdued so that standing before the spotting scope was not eye-tearing torture.

Scanning over the water peremptorily, Canada geese and Ringneck ducks were noted as well as the ubiquitous Mute swans. Nothing new was added to the list of duck species, but the waves glinted in the sun and all seemed poised for a return of spring.

Lastly, Broad Brook reservoir. We stepped gingerly through brush and pools of standing water flecked with the shedding red buds of the maple trees. We set up the scope along the edge of the reservoir. As if on a proscenium Buffleheads paraded to and fro each taking turns bowing or diving before an audience, and the sun, acting like a monumental stage light, highlighted the merrily chopping waves.
Swiveling the scope around on its stand suddenly drew into the eye piece the image of a raft of Ruddy ducks, their short upturned tails held like exclamation points. In the background just in front of that long stretch of cattails swam a pair of Common mergansers, the male’s white flanks reflecting the sharp, pellucid atmosphere. Swooping just overhead making a beeline towards a copse of tall white pines with black-green foliage was a Bald eagle and its black, expansive wingspan spoke of monarchy and privilege.

We repositioned ourselves to a clearing beneath white pine boughs and observed more Ruddy ducks and Buffleheads. Looking up, far in the distance upon a massive bulge of basalt as antediluvian as the universe sat Castle Craig, a dark grey rook looming, brooding, as if on gigantic chessboard. “Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman pass by,” it seemed to say, quoting Yeats.
It was decided to honor tradition and visit the backside of the reservoir. There it was possible to spot Hooded mergansers. We arrived with expectation but no Hooded were seen. However, another raft of Ruddy ducks floated and bobbed nearby, and while we on shore had to dodge the constant flow of traffic using the back road of the reservoir as a short cut, the ducks rose and fell unperturbed as if cognizant of their own importance, an absolute presence rather than the artificial and ephemeral, like mankind’s machinations.

A subsequent trip later in the afternoon to the Cromwell Meadows Wildlife area produced a sighting of Wood ducks seen through a matrix of red and swamp maples in the flooded plain of the Mattabassett River, like glints of sunshine on the surface that suddenly and silently swam out of sight.

Another Christmas Count is behind us! We had a very successful 49th annual count which was held on Sunday, December 17th, 2023. Our 15-mile diameter count circle center is the Comstock Covered Bridge in Colchester. 11 teams (38 birders) were in the field, and we had 10 feeder counters who submitted data from their backyards.

The weather cooperated with a minimum temperature of 35 degrees and maximum of 51 degrees by the afternoon! It felt a little strange not to need to be all bundled up. Although it was cloudy most of the day, thankfully, the precipitation held off until after sunset.

Thanks to Joe Morin, Tom and Valentina Baptist we did not get skunked on owls! All the usuals were seen including Great-horned, Eastern Screech, and Barred. No one had Northern Saw-whet Owl this year. No one saw vultures on count day, but thanks to Barbi Batchelder and Carrie Conrad we were able to include Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture as “count week” species.

Carrie’s team also had Red-throated Loon on the CT River! Highlights from my team were a flock of 60 Eastern Meadowlark, 1404 Ring-necked Duck, 1 Pied-billed Grebe, and 1 American Woodcock that came within a foot of being stepped on before being flushed by a surprised Roy Dellinger.

The Salmon River Count had a total of 75 species on count day, which is a respectable number for our inland territory. Species with over 1000 individuals seen included:

Ring-necked duck (1409)
American Robin (1035)
The next most common birds were:
European Starling (866)
Canada Goose (635)
Dark-eyed Junco (528)
Blue Jay (321)
White-throated Sparrow (350)
Mallard (316)
Tufted Titmouse (272)
Black-capped Chickadee (254)
Cedar Waxwing (247)
Eastern Bluebird (230)

Many of us gathered at Farrell’s Restaurant in Portland after our work in the field to enjoy a warm meal and share stories from the day. Many field participants have been a part of this count for ver 25 years, some since its inception!

I look forward to seeing the same faces year after year. There is great camaraderie among this group of people. That being said, we are always looking for more people to become a part of this annual tradition. Next year is the big 5-0 and we would like to make it our biggest count ever! Please help us achieve that goal. You won’t regret it!

Sharon Dellinger, Co-Compiler of Salmon River Christmas Bird Count and Secretary of Mattabeseck Audubon Society

He opened the journal and tried to recollect. The weather forecasters predicted rain that weekend. But in the journal it was written: early morning; temperate 65 degrees Fahrenheit; cloudy, slight mist; no rain.

There were just the two standing in the stone dust parking lot beside the soccer field where beans and peppers once grew and gazing downward into a declivity overgrown with multiflora rose, Russian olive, cottonwood and red maple trees, assorted tall grasses, little bluestem and various pioneer species of shrub-scrub.

They began “pish-pishing” trying to rouse any avians up from their hideaways and autumnal somnolence. A palm warbler accommodated the birders, beating its tail like a metronome and flashing its yellow underside like a semaphore. A song sparrow arose, immediately diving back into the understory. A ruby-crowned kinglet was more cooperative exposing itself unabashedly.

They walked along the edge of a thick wooden fence and came up to a towering mugwort-covered gravel mound “pish-pishing” and listening. A Carolina wren sounded a treble-note. Commonly, blue jays, crows, cardinals and catbirds were observed. They had come to find sparrows and when they turned the corner of the mugwort mound they found them: song, white throat and Savannah. The birds scattered hither and thither, enlivening the dried goldenrod, leaving the perennials throbbing as they jettisoned themselves from one stem to another.

Standing on another elevated gravel perch and looking over a mini forest of shrub-scrub was rewarded with a fleeting glance at a female yellow throat warbler.

Circling back to the parking lot, recalling how just moments before quietude and the pursuit of feathered spirits reigned, suddenly, as if conjured up from below the earth, a phalanx of automobiles arrived and spilled out shouting children and excited parents mobilized with sports equipment, folding chairs, coolers, etc. animating the soccer field. Wistfully, as he now appraised the journal and reflected, he had wished them wiser and more thoughtful, their enthusiasm redirected towards those secretive, vulnerable birds flocking amongst the goldenrod.

The journal pointed to the next stop: the Nature Garden. The mists became more clinging and the ink on the journal’s pages became more fluid, trailing streaks like teardrops. Following a cinder-covered path and listening carefully a debate ensued and judgement final: it was a red shouldered hawk, not a bluejay imitator.

From a red maple copse adjacent to the path came the abrupt chirps of a white breasted nuthatch, the pin-pong call of a downy woodpecker and the whinny of a red shafted flicker.

In the interior portion of the Nature garden were white flowered dogwoods laden with red, fat-rich berries and eastern red cedars also bearing copious hard, round pellets and they attracted American robins by the dozen.

The pages of the journal now began to crinkle as raindrops developed out of the mists that became so fulsome that they could no longer hold their ethereal bodies together.

The lugubrious path followed entanglements of invasive mile-a-minute vines, a convolution of assassins. The native vegetative population would moan pitifully if it could.

The rain splattered the automobile as it rolled slowly over the gravel drive leading into the Durham meadows. Sitting on a pole as regal as any bird of prey symbolized on the walls of an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb was an American kestrel. They were given a fleeting glance and then a vacuum ensued, as the kestrel hurriedly disappeared across the fields.

Fortuitously, the sky seemed to have vented itself as the two alighted from the car. The print on the journal page regained its clarity; it denoted that the rain had stopped though the air was still thick with humidity.

Around the backside of a rustling hedgerow a path was mown and following it was rewarded by the sight of a flurry of sparrow activity. Maddeningly, they perched atop the swards of goldenrod and joe-pye weed and then dove into the adjacent brush and silky dogwood.

Crawling almost on hands and knees to chase down a flicker of movement beside a watery depression revealed the presence of a swamp sparrow.

Returning to the open path, walking just a little farther, little farther still. Then, as brief as a ray of light through rapidly closing cloud cover came the sight of an immature white-crowned sparrow; it was written in large letters there on the journal’s page.

Telling of a burst into flight of a flock of red wing blackbirds it seemed the journal finally unburdened itself of all its secrets.

There were 25 species tallied with five of them sparrows and two satisfied and not really damp participants.

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his cold complexion dimmed.
Shakespeare

The days proceeding the trip were laid out like golden goblets on a golden service tray, each day warmer than the next, culminating in a flash of heat. The tray was dropped with a resounding cacophony. After the storm a leaden sky appeared and the service set was transformed into pewter.

Several campers were disembarking from the river that slipped around the brown banks and pilings where the ferry docked.

‘’Yes,” one of the campers replied. “We survived the storm last night all right.”

‘’Quarry heights. And we hiked above and looked out across the river towards Eustastia Island. A beautiful view.”

‘’Ah. Well, good luck. And you’ve got a nice craft there,” the camper added eyeing our canoe.

“Yes. it’s a fifty pound kevlar v-hull, and we don’t worry about wakes thrown up by the ocean liners out there.”

The camper laughed. the conversation ended and we were quickly on the water. It was uncharacteristically still for a week-end. But the overcast sky (some would say downcast) and the chill temperature (61°) voided the river of pilgrims and power boats.

Slipping easily down-river we passed a bass boat. two fisherman standing together casting hopefully to right and to left.

‘’You wouldn’t be able to do that so calmly if this were a better day, weather-wise,” we shouted, meaning the waves kicked up from passing pleasure craft would shake them to pieces.

We continued on. The tide was rising and the canoe felt the resistance. Turning into Selden Creek from the main stem of the river allowed some relief. The paddles pushed away the surface of the water. Two power boats entered the creek and slowly passed us also taking advantage of the incoming tide, their two cycle exhaust momentarily disconcerting. Calm returned after they had slipped around a curve.

We turned our attention to the verdant bank of Selden Creek. Arrow wood and Multiflora rose crowded the stream’s edge. Green ash and Sycamore rose above them. We listened for Yellow warblers and Common yellowthroats. When we rounded the next curve Sandpipers burst from a sandy spit of beach as narrow as an eyebrow, ‘weep-weep-weeping’ as they flew away.

There was a small inlet that withheld interesting native emergent plants. Paddling into it with the rising water we disturbed a Great blue heron sitting on a fallen tree limb jutting out over the inlet. There was Peltandra virginica, arrow arum. and Pontederia cordata, pickerelweed. sending green fingers pointing skyward from the surface of the water.

Returning to the creek’s mainstream we passed dense flora with tangles of wild concord grape vine. We thought wistfully of the times we harvested those grapes at much risk to our skins, thrashing about the prickly Multiflora rose and Barberry, insidious invasives, in order to make the purple gold-standard of grape jam. One of the charms of Selden Creek is the vast web of arteries that branch off of it at every turn. With the tide still rising we could travel through these arteries as they gradually divided into veins and then narrowed further into capillaries before we had to stop and reverse direction. Here was the sanctum sanctorum of Redwing blackbirds, Wood ducks, Mallards, Snapping turtles, and large, non-native snails.

The wind had risen and along with the cloudy atmosphere and grayness it made the skin chill. So we stayed a moment in one of these side arteries out of the wind. Reaching over the gunwales we plucked blades of Sweet fern that were like lemon-scented swords and sniffed them with pleasure.

We continued along the creek passing cattail studded lowlands to starboard and rising mounds of granite on the port side. Phoebes often place their mud nests in the crevices of the granitic schists and gneiss.

A wind gust forced the canoe to hug the inside track of another artery. Following it past an Osprey nest whose occupant complained plaintively at our presence. we penetrated deeply into the stream with the incoming tide, stopping only when our way was barred by a fallen tree. We opted to tie up and have lunch.

The clouds churned like steam coming out of a teapot, sometimes revealing a shaft of sunlight. Red wing black birds ‘keer-eed’ all around us while we ate. In the distance, somewhere in the interior of the island, Common Ravens crackled inquisitively with one another.

Underneath the canoe large, open-mouthed Carp thrashed and bumped against each other as they undertook the ritual of spawning. The surface of the water would ripple as if a volcano was erupting and creating a tsunami and then a Carp would emerge, flashing green scales. The water boiled a moment and then lay flat as the fish submerged. And again the commotion was repeated.

Lunch finished, we retraced our watery path to the main stem of Selden Creek. There was one last stop: The Nature Conservancy’s tidal marsh preserve. In past trips not only Fiddler but Blue crabs were found when tidal conditions were right and a wedge of salt water penetrated far up the Connecticut River.

We located neither crab species, but noted many non-native clams and native mussels, mostly Eliptio. The stream-side Tussock sedge created mounds of habitat for other plants.

We concluded our voyage, returning along the creek avoiding for the meantime some of the cold wind blowing down the Connecticut River channel that we would have encountered if we had tried to circumnavigate Selden Island.

When we finally scraped bow against the take-out point near the ferry landing we engaged another paddler just entering the river. He had a top-seated kayak loaded with camping gear. Describing his equipment and slightly embarrassed at his personal protection (he was outfitted head to toe in neoprene, and wore water-proof gloves) he said he was bound for Selden Island.

“We just arrived from there and it’s peaceful. Cold for June, though,” we advised.

He pushed off while we loaded up the truck and calculated the day’s experience.

Who can foretell the vagaries of spring? A sudden flush of warmth bordering on fever like the beginning of an ague…then a chill…clouds the color of cold steel smothering the sky.
And so this early spring warbler walk was affected by the weather. It is well known that the neotropical migrants need a trailing wind and a warm welcome to proceed northward. The weeks leading up to the field trip had neither.

Nevertheless a group of eleven gathered in anticipation, expectations blooming like the oaks surrounding the River Highlands parking lot. They proceeded on to the forbidden railroad tracks, eyes skyward, necks craning. They glanced to either side, senses trying to penetrate the shrubbery, ears tuned to the slightest avian vocalization.

There was a pronounced silence. But then a Hummingbird alighted briefly on an Russian olive branch. (Ah, you ubiquitous invasive, were you trying to redeem yourself by hosting the diminutive Ruby-throat?)

Gradually, voices were coaxed out of the woodlands adjacent to the rail line: A mewling Catbird; a Goldfinch’s slight pitch; the Robin’s chortle; somewhere far off the chick-chick-chick! of the Ovenbird. Then an Northern oriole, an orange dash with a melodious chirrup! appeared in the green spangle of a maple tree and satiated the eyes as well as the ears.

Binoculars at the ready, the birders gradually proceeded along the railroad tracks that lay on the ground like iron sutures. They became strung out in two’s or three’s like pearls on a necklace. They passed through a ravine with steep hillsides that promised but did not deliver Worm-eating warblers. Coming out of that vale into the open, a yawning green golf course spread before them. Now that the sun had parted the clouds it shined brilliantly, glistening on the turf. Tree swallows pitched and danced in carefree parabolas over the manicured water-holes.

Into the forest and onto the path overlooking the Connecticut River, streaming by in flood stage. There was heightened expectations that one could conjure up from the steep slopes the Worm-eating warblers. At first there was the continued profound silence. But at last, with persistent vigilance, the warblers were heard, and there were several.

From the interior part of the forest the canopy and understory were all leafed out, “dressed to the nines with nowhere to go.” But there was continued ethereal silence as if the choir had vacated the organ loft.

Suddenly, just as when a cloud passes under the sun and leaves the stage, brightness returning, a yellow slash appeared on a dead branch jutting out from a tree. It was the necklace of a Yellow-throated vireo that had everyone shouting for joy at the sight of it. All were enchanted by the golden hues, the bluish caste of wing bars, the nonchalance of the bird preening its breast on the leaf-less limb.

Next, a lone Yellow rump warbler was espied at the top of the canopy. Then a verdant blanket was wrapped over the heads of the observers and silence and inactivity returned.

There was one last hurrah, however. Approaching the parking lot, Pine warblers singing high up in the canopy amongst a copse of red pine trees had heads nodding in satisfaction.

New arrivals from the south were sure to appear in the following weeks. One longed for the suspension of time, and the eternal unending trills of the migrants, in defiance of the ineluctable brevity of existence.

0835 Bishop's Pond
The sky was overcast like the tarnished flanks of a plate of steel and the wind coldly slapped the face and nostrils began to drivel, but immediately upon alighting from the automobiles parked along Bishop’s pond sunk along either side of the Industrial Park roadway there was noticeable activity.

Dabbling and floating, paddling in circles like toys in a child’s bath,Mallards, Blacks and Gadwalls insinuated themselves between the brown stalks of giant reed (phragmites) and cattail whose heads were ravaged by winter’s reign. Sailing amongst the ducks were Mute swans, heads lowered, white flanks smudged with detritus.

On the opposite side of the roadway was the usually more diverse waterbody, in view of the continuous traffic of 1-91. The eyes swelled with tears as the wind caressed them. Wiping away the moisture the observers set up scopes and excitedly rattled off species and individuals: Wood; Gadwall; Mallard; Black; Bufflehead; Green wing teal; Ring neck; American widgeon.

A ubiquitous pair of Canada geese murmured to themselves as they paddled away from the edge of the pond gaining distance from the exuberant, cavorting birders.

Spotting scopes up and over the shoulder… take a few steps and reset, getting a different angle… wipe the nostrils with a kerchief or a sleeve… quantify species in notebooks… that is how the group proceeded as they shuffled over the thick, brown grasses along the shores of the pond.
Satisfied with the enumeration, it was on to the next stop.

0925 North Farm
A short hop along Route 68 took the observers to North Farm Reservoir. On one shore residences peered over extensive lawns at the gyrating waves of the waterbody. There was a bristling, unoccupied oak-covered island in the center; and on the adjacent shore there was an inundation of cattail, emergent plants and arrow wood. The wind mercilessly fondled the ears and cheeks, but squinting through scopes was productive as numerous Wood duck and Green wing teal were seen wheeling about as if on a non-stop carousel. The observers cried out their numbers to the tabulators who scribbled frenetically on their notepads.

The waves lapped at the jagged shore. The sun finally broke through the steel cap of clouds and diamonds flashed on the surface of the water. With bellies white as smooth marble Ring bill gulls traced parabolas in the brightened atmosphere.

10:05 Broad Brook Reservoir
And last. Broad Brook lay such that the north-south wind created accordion-like rivulets upon its surface. Following an old abandoned asphalt drive broken and cracked like the chapped lips of an Arctic explorer brought the group to several vantage points. Some chose to attain the open vistas easily reached by the road. Others poked through broken fencing, wet pockets of leaf litter and understory to observe a kidney-shaped section of the reservoir. They discovered Common and Hooded mergansers.

Upon joining with the other observers at the more easily accessed vista it was announced that Ruddy ducks had formed a flotilla not far offshore. They rose and fell as the reservoir’s surface gyrated like a bowl of clear gelatin with a spark in its center.

On shore stood a canopy of great, broken White pines, their wounds attesting to wild winter winds and summer cloud bursts; wizened limbs resting on the forest floor were evidence of the tell-tale torments of the passage of time.

The decision was made to travel to a causeway at the far distant back of Broad Brook that separated the main body of water from a smaller detention pond.

Along either side of the causeway was a necklace of societal debris that choked Nature to the bones of its throat.

Nevertheless, the water bounced and beckoned the observers to come near and they were rewarded by the sight of the Bald eagle’s imperial flight. And then, as if emerging from the grayness of one’s subconscious, a Common loon rose to the surface, having chased some unseen bait. This was a pleasant ending to the expedition.

0830 Machimoodus Park
A brown and desiccated landscape… a low, cold wind, but not intolerable for the season, drifts in and around the clothing. Collars are turned up.

A burst of activity around the gravel mound bristling with decayed stems of goldenrod and shafts of stag horn sumac over-topped by gnarled black locust trees: a Carolina wren, a few White-throated sparrows. Cardinals arise from the brush and fly across the vision towards an open pond. Winter had only occasionally deigned to leave his throne of ice and blow his breath upon the earth before lethargically reclining once again, turning his frosted eyes inward, uninterested in his duties.

A stroll past crab apple trees growing on either side of the path usually produced a flock of Bluebirds, but not this day. And the slow climb to the summit of Mt. Tom above the Salmon river cove was also devoid of activity: “pissh! pissh!” and then silence. At last the drumming of a Downy woodpecker reminded one of early spring.

At the summit there was a broad view of the cove. Dotted on the shifting surface were rafts of Canada geese and Mute swans. Ring bill gulls whirling in the air flashed white wings in the forbearing sunshine. Looking out farther, near a bobbing group of geese, a mature Bald eagle danced low over the surface. The geese did not appear to be concerned. The eagle made several passes a couple feet above the water and then, like a bit of loose paper tossed upwards, it flew above the tree line and disappeared.

Tumbling down the precipitous hillside trail led to an open plain. The little blue stem looked inviting but no amount of peering through binoculars could produce an avian candidate.
The return was equally quiet apart from another drumming Downy and a smattering of Dark-eyed juncos.

1100 Cove Road
A different perspective; looking level at Salmon cove where geese and swans shared mud flats at low tide with Black ducks and Mallards and a pair of Common mergansers. Periodic bursts of squabbling and bickering emanated from the rafts of geese. The ducks and swans upended themselves in open water diving for greenery. The sun glinted piercingly off of the water and the wind continued rubbing against the cheeks and ears. But the eagle did not reappear.

1145 Gillette Castle
The grey, hulking edifice hunched familiarly upon the rise, surrounded once again by construction equipment. As the promontory was closed to the public, observations had to be taken at a lower level, under the purview of the “train depot” with its two venerable, inscrutable cats peering to either side from their position on the roof. One cat was a reproduction of the original, but the ebony feline to the right, its tail broken off yet still looking dignified, spoke of William Gillette himself.

Looking down river at the outline of Selden island, a dark hump like the back of a whale, and across towards the ferry landing gave no indication of an eagle’s presence. The wind created bright commas on the river’s surface. Between the commas Common mergansers rose and fell meditatively, but that was all.

One remembers a plethora of white heads and tails perched in the tall hemlocks growing tenaciously from around granite outcrops above the river. Perhaps the drooping winter did not force a typical migration of eagles southward this year, and the Woolly adelgid-infested hemlocks lay in ruins.

It was a perfect day for a field trip — three stalwarts set about hunting for sparrows and whatever else would pop up from the overgrown brush in the old “bean field” adjacent to the Middletown soccer fields parking area on Long Hill Road.

After a search in the upper area, it was decided that attempting the usual hike down through the treacherous rocky hillside was no longer an option. Because the brush had grown so tall and thick, it now thoroughly hid the drops, rocks, and hole hazards underfoot. So, it was back to the parking lot and a walk into the wetland area from the street.
Bean field yielded 18 species, including 3 sparrows (Song, Field, and Swamp), but no White-crowned.

Next stop was Middletown Nature Garden, where we picked up White-throated sparrow, as well as another 9 birds.

Last stop was the Durham Meadows. Here, we found a Savannah sparrow, and 3 other birds.
The bird of the day was a Common Redpoll found at the Bean Field. Swamp sparrows were unusually plentiful.

I. The Send Off
The mechanics of disengaging the canoe from the vehicle, oft-repeated, learned by rote, could as well be accomplished in the blackness of midnight as in broad daylight: loosen the rope ties fore and aft from the truck’s bumpers; spin the wing nuts counter-clockwise and drop the bolts out of the clamps that are firmly biting into the gunwales of the canoe and pressing it rigidly onto the supporting ramp attached to the roof of the truck; then relieve the tension on the ratchets that tighten the lengths of the two straps that lie athwart the hull of the canoe; a twist, hoisting the canoe upwards and outboard away from the truck’s rearview mirrors, then a quick flip and the canoe rests on the terra firma.

Next, tote the vessel over loose sand down to the river’s edge. Then a brusque scramble back and forth to the truck to gather up necessities. Don’t forget the paddles!

Just then two emissaries arrive to grant bon voyage, encouragement, and cheer. She, effusively kind, wistful perhaps, but also secretly glad it was not She that would endure the sun and flies, mud, and sometimes exhausting pulling against the lowering tide. He, wearing a brimmed Quaker-style chapeau, also advanced goodwill, ably took photographs and recounted anecdotes about crossing paths with Ospreys and other wildlife.

“There’s a nest on one of the light poles up at the athletic field behind the police station,” the photographer said.

“Amazing, I walk by that field all the time but never noticed the nest,” one of the canoeists replied.

Those in the expedition, anxious to begin the journey, appraised the loaded canoe – sixteen and a half feet of camouflaged kevlar with a built-in keel that enabled the vessel to roll with the wakes of passing yachts. The canoe had gleaming brown ash gunwales, and cane seats.

The wind was calm, the temperature moderate. The tide was fulfilled and beginning to let out its breath. A last wave at the well-wishers and the canoeists shoved off.

Paddles rose up to chest height, flourished there a second, and then were dipped strongly, breaking the water’s surface. The ripples flowed silently backward from the bow of the canoe.

There is a narrow, curvaceous length of the Connecticut River to be maneuvered before reaching the outflow of the Mattabassett. To starboard is the steep bluff of manmade berm, supporting the underlayment of the route 9 corridor. To port is the primeval growth of Wilcox Island, home of the Bald eagle. The wind was negligible, the surface of the water silken and easily traversed. The canoe slipped under the highway overpass; the pillars of supporting concrete stood mutely obedient, carrying the weight of untold waves of traffic on their backs.

Adjacent to the highway bridge was the more ancient, rusting, skeletal railroad trestle, the blue June sky apparent between the creosoted ties. Stalwart souls with nerves of steel crossed these ties with impunity. Don’t look down!

Leaving the bridges behind the canoe took a sharp curve and suddenly it was as if it had entered the movie “Wizard of Oz” when the black and white reel segued into technicolor. A broad swath of emerald green arose on either side of the narrow Mattabassett river. The sylvan flood plain helped absorb the ripping noise of the highway and blotted from view man-made objects. Ostrich ferns on the river bank spread their fronds like the fans of exotic dancers. Silver maples with huge girths dipped their thickly-leaved branches to the ground. The bank was inundated with numerous tiny inlets overhung with ferns and sedges. From the top of one of the maples a short, gurgling chirp was heard, the exclamation of a Great-crested flycatcher.

The canoe swept upstream, rounding curve after curve. Windfalls stretched out their limbs and groped at the heads of the paddlers who ducked as they passed. The confluence of the Coginchaug river with the Mattabassett was reached, indicated by a great gathering of pickerelweed and arrow arum swaying in the tidal zone. This was also the first sighting of the nefarious water chestnut.
The surface floating, seed-bearing rosettes of this prolific invasive looked like the emerald-green droppings of water bovines. They were firmly anchored to the muddy bottom of the river, connected by a thin stem to a viciously spiked nut like the mace of a medieval knight. When the canoe passed a final curve and entered a large open stretch of the Cromwell Meadows Wildlife Refuge many more rosettes were seen basking insidiously in the sun.

Apart from the water chestnuts, the Meadows evinced a glow of natural beauty. Waving fronds of sedges emerged on all sides. Tree swallows made parabolas in the air stream above. Great egrets, white as chalk, brilliantly reflective in the sun, stalked the shallows, grudgingly accommodating Great blue herons who also hunted nearby. The herons had come from their rookery in the Portland Wangunk Meadows and would return to their nestlings with gullets filled with food.
A soothing rhythm developed as the canoe traversed the river’s meanders. The paddles rose and fell over the gunwales to the sound of the male Red wing blackbird’s territorial call: “ker-ker-ee!”
There was a sense of urgency, however, because the incoming tide had peaked and the tea-colored water was ostensibly falling. How far up river could the canoe travel, even with its shallow draft?
Soon the river once again became an urban waterway, for the traffic along Route 9 became more audible. And the appearance of buildings and commercial activity along Route 72 intruded on the tranquility. Any notion one might have had of the primitive nature of the Mattabassett was wiped out by the sight of inimical outflows of highway storm drains divulging trickles of water of dubious heredity.

But this distraction was all on the starboard side of the canoe. To port the foliage of the flood plain still dominated. The understory was choked with poison ivy and stinging nettle, probably as a result of agricultural clearing and then abandonment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The river gradually became more shallow, but with fulsome pockets of water near the banks it was possible to navigate around fast flowing riffles. Then came the passage under the Newfield street bridge. Formerly this bridge underpass sustained a population of Barn swallows that nested in the nooks and crannies of the support structure. However, an overhaul and rebuilding of the bridge left a design less to the swallows liking. Now, not even the rock doves bothered to utilize the underpass.

The canoe edged over to a mud flat just below and adjacent to the Westlake condominium development. Despite the presence of man-made infrastructure it was possible to observe an example of the biodiversity still existing on this urban river: Arisaema dracontium, the Green dragon plant. This flood plain habitué has certain requirements. It grows in moist swales but they must not be too flooded. They seek a certain equilibrium. They have an interesting yellow spadix, looking like a dragon’s tongue that curves upwards from the base of the plant. The spadix is the Green dragon’s flowering part and by the end of June small red berries appear, the result of its pregnancy. The Green dragon is in the same family as the Jack-in-the-pulpit and if you find one in the flood plain, the other may surely be nearby.

Now the water was characterized by fast riffles and exposed mudflats. The canoeists half-poled, half-paddled as far as they could and were finally forced to disembark. The canoe was pulled up on a glistening, pebbly mud bank and exploration of the dwindling water ensued. Two species of mussels were discovered, Elliptio and Alewife floater. There were numerous non-native clams. And there were some man-made treasures, too: a bottle; shards of pottery; an old spoon.
There was a pause for lunch, reflection, and listening to some of the pure sounds of nature. A Mallard flew low heading down stream. The sky was filled with billowing clouds, like groups of men with large, white bellies. Patiently, the canoeists waited for tide and time, and the soothing unhurried dictates of the elements.

The canoeists half-dragged, half-floated the canoe around fast, shallow riffles until they found deeper water along the edges of the mud banks. With paddles sometimes scraping the gravel river bed they slowly, steadily made their way down stream, passing landmarks from a different perspective. The canoe easily slipped through a sluiceway formed by the left-side bank and a rock pile crowned with shrubs to the right. They passed the commercial building rising up on concrete pillars built within the boundaries of the flood plain. Numerous are these insults to aesthetics and biodiversity along the Mattabassett corridor.

Farther down stream where natural habitat once again dominated, American bladdernut perched on the upland slopes that plunged down to the edge of the river. Dangling on the ends of these interesting understory shrubs are unique tiny lanterns: bladdernuts, the flowering reproductive organs of the plant. A woodchuck scurried along the steep gravelly rise beneath the shrubs.

The canoe maneuvered the wide swings of the river channel once again, heading unalterably to the Mattabassett’s convergence with the Connecticut River. Water chestnuts appeared once again. And then the large open stretch of the Cromwell Meadows spread itself before the canoeists.

The wind inevitably arises in the Meadows and blows straight into the bow of the canoe. Patiently, the paddlers bore down, tacking and inching as close to the margins of the emergent pickerelweed and sedge to cut down the angle of the wind. Ospreys hovered unconcernedly above.

At last a wind-felled silver maple jutting into the river at a bend in the river was reached and the canoeists glided into relatively calm water. They paddled past the Coginchaug convergence and then methodically retraced the way through meanders heading towards the Connecticut River.
One last swing around a bend avoiding a fisherman’s outstretched line, he espying the canoe with grim caution, and paddling underneath the railroad and highway bridges, the canoeists emerged into the waters adjacent to Wilcox island.

The canoe was pulled up onto the exposed mud of the island. The canoeists disembarked, recollecting the sycamores that pointed the way to the interior where, sixty feet or more up an enormous cottonwood, Bald eagles had made their nest. Climbing along the embankment the canoeists gazed wistfully towards where the nesting tree might arise, blocked from view by a sward of vegetation not unlike a jungle. They were not dressed for a trek into the interior with its monoculture of poison ivy and stinging nettle. They looked and listened but discretion triumphed over valor.

A few hundred yards more of paddling and the expedition ended where it began. The tide had mercifully risen above the thick brown pudding of the shoreline and the canoeists were able to pull their craft out of the water without sinking into the quagmire.

Tremulous grey hands compressed the early May sky…the brisk and unrelenting northeast wind drawn over vast stretches of the North Atlantic south of Greenland chilled the fingers that held the binoculars and brought moisture to the eyes so that it was difficult to discern the migrants that hopefully would surmount the meteorological impediments and arrive at the appointed time and place.

But alas, the sightings were scarce. Was that one far-off note a Rose-breasted grosbeak, or was it the cruelly deceiving wind that scratched at the crimson crowns of the red maples?

With slow, processional pace the observers gazed, shushed, and listened to little avail. Yet, finally a Black and white warbler pirouetted into view, unconcerned with the days antithesis of neo-tropical comfort. An intrepid, reliable Catbird sat up on top of a multiflora rose; a lone, brave Swamp sparrow raised up its head.

Then there was the “one that got away” – a diminutive bird wearing no conspicuous raiments with a voice taken away by the wind.

Farther down the rail line, turning to either side of the tracks, watching and listening, the stalking continued. Year ‘round residents flitted into view and dissembled: Goldfinch, Cardinal, Grackle (yes, present even in winter now), Titmouse, et al.

Until finally a burst of activity high in the canopy, like dots and floaters dancing before the eyes, indistinct, ephemeral. They were the frenetic movements of Yellow-rump warblers and they were plentiful. And then like a quick clap of thunder, they were gone, replaced by the wind blowing through the yet naked branches.

A turn onto a path above the river…the wind did not tease; rather, it slapped with impunity the face, the ears, the exposed portions of the throat. The tops of the oaks that had set out exploratory leaves and flowers swayed wildly their invitation to warblers to come feast on the emergent caterpillars, but all for naught. Silence, too, in the understory.

Peering downslope, ears cocked in hopes of hearing the captivating treble of the Worm-eating warbler, produced nothing. All one heard was the slooping of waves along the shore. All one saw was foaming lips of an agitated river.

The pathway descended steeply then rose to a height where the far off lime-colored hills were bundled one upon another. “Blow, blow thou bitter wind,”…Shakespeare wrote. And yet it caused an apparition to appear: an immature Bald Eagle, seen turning its broad wing span in the air like the hands of a great clock, jockeying for position in the unrelenting wind.

Turning from the bluff into the interior of the forest gave some relief from the scouring. Yet, in the tree tops silence ensued. Until, finally, a cipher of deep red flank and black wing gave visibility to a Scarlet tanager and with him was an olive companion, a female, perhaps his mate.

But that was all there was to it; though the rain held off, and the walk did one no harm, Aeolus unloosed from the caves his furies; they charged across the sky and won the day.

Wildflowers Guiffrida Park, April 23, 2022
Smooth Rock Cress — a species that stumpted us Salmon River creek low tide

“Come and traverse my antedeluvian countenance, repleat with the scars and deformities, the crumbling jowels, the boulders assunder like grey and loosened teeth. Rivulets of moisture pour down from eyes that have seen and endured the eons.

“My once noble chin is fractured, the stubble thereon woven like the root convoluted roots of pine trees grown to the surface of the land. My ears are stone, I leave it to you, the living, to hear the meliflous notes of the Pine warblers, descending from the trees.

“Walk through the wrinkles, the crevasses that are the lines of my grey, cross-hatched cheeks and espy the Dogtooth violets and nodding Purple trillium sprouting there along the upper lip of a mouth set in time into a perpetual clench. You’ll find a growth of Dutchman’s breeches and Ramps, their living verdure in such contrast to the grayness of my talus slope.

“The edge of my clenched mouth has slumped. There you’ll find your Spring beauty, Blue cohosh (not yet in bloom), and Ginger, sprouting coyly, withholding its bell-like flower from the naked stare of the vulgar world. And what is that high-pitched treble?—a Louisiana waterthrush perched on the tallest of the canopy of Chestnut oaks.

“Now rise upwards along the base of my crooked nose, abbreviated with Trillium, Dutchman’s breeches, Ginger, and Bloodroot. A steady stream of clear, cold effluent flows from a nostril.
“Higher climb, across the bridge of my nose and reach the broad and severe forehead. There you’ll find a plateau of Rue anemone, and scattered in with them Early saxifrage, and purple and white Hepatica. A Mourning cloke lands on one of my furrowed brows; a Titmouse touches another.

“And now on to the summit, my hard and misshapen skull, to be rewarded with the discovery, subtly hidden in the roots of my salt and pepper hair, of Yellow corydalis—hovered over by the equally enchanting Orange falcate butterfly.

“Above all, the sky, the ephemeral spring clouds, and below, the living suffering earth. How shall I find thee this time next year?”

Under threat rain, the sky flat, looking like the bottom of a stainless steel pan, with mild temperatures and little wind, the puddle-jumping discovery of duck species began.

Anticipation is always the driving element of any field trip. Turning onto Industrial Park Road in Meriden delivered that adrenaline. Exiting the car, one immediately sees one of the ponds through the pine boughs and the honeysuckle shrubs, grey and bristling in their winter clothes. A few Mallards there, nestled against the protective cattails. Across the roadway lies the more productive water body with the whirring traffic of I-91 in the background, How odd the juxtaposition!

Quickly setting up the spotting scope after a preliminary scanning of the leaden surface of the pond, the counting began: Bufflehead; Pintail; Mallard; Black; Green-wing teal. Two Mute swans drifted by like white Spanish galleons. Dark-colored Canada geese cackled and gossiped among themselves.

Putting the scope over the shoulder and walking cautiously along the brush-indented shoreline caused more ducks to flush. Disturbed Ring-necks rose and tripped over the surface and landed in the background. Several Green-wing teal followed them.

The air was dense and clouds hung low, but no rain fell and the wind was negligible, unusual for a March morning.

The next stop, North Farms Reservoir, was more problematic. Fog had suddenly arisen, and as one gazed out over the water at the islands in the distance it was as if one were squinting with the bloodied eyes of a badly bruised boxer. The spotting scope reflected back the bright haze. There were a few Canada geese, the ubiquitous Mute swans and a steady flight of Ringbill gulls. On to the next puddle.

There are two ways to approach Broadbrook Reservoir. The first is off Route 68, where an abandoned service road coated with the detritus of the white pines bordering it leads to the edge of the reservoir. Following this road, detouring through a red maple swamp, takes one to an observation point where a large section of water can be surveyed. Here, too, the high dew point made viewing difficult. It was as if a chalice was being lifted before a church congregation and its reflection obscured everything around it. Nevertheless, Common mergansers were spotted as well as Buffleheads. And then a raft of Ruddy ducks was brought into focus with the scope. How delightfully they posed with their tails stiffly raised!

The service road underneath the drooping and embattled white pines, their many soft branches decimated by storms, takes one to another vantage point where, if it was clear, Castle Craig could be seen, hunched like a medieval mushroom upon the ponderous basalt cliff. Looking out over the surface of the water, more Common mergansers were spotted but also Common golden-eyes, with small white patchs beneath the eyes and diagonal stripes etched along the back.

A second approach to the nether side of Broadbrook Reservoir is along Highland Avenue, which becomes Reservoir Road The pines there harbored a Bald eagle’s nest, and an eagle made its grand appearance. Common mergansers and Buffleheads bobbed nonchalantly on the waves of the reservoir.

Retracing the day’s journey past the ponds of Industrial Park Road, Black Pond beckoned. Primeval slabs of basalt fell in vertical, vertiginous strokes to the edge of the water. The sky, the rocks and the water were all grey. Apart from Canada geese, there were no other waterfowl. However, the first Osprey of the season was seen perched on a skeleton’s outstretched arm, a branch of an oak adjacent to the water. A sign of spring coming.

Nine duck species were counted. A final stop at Cromwell Meadows was made to gather a tenth species: the Wood duck, but none were flushed. However, a subsequent visit the following day produced several individuals. They burst off the water from their hiding places among the Buttonbush with high pitched squeals, making the Let’s Go A-Ducking trip complete.

There was no frost that morning. Crossing the swing bridge over a leaden, but unfrozen river, two Bald eagles were seen perched on the upswept branches of Eastern hemlock. Was this a promise of things to come?

At Machimoodus State Park the soft and sensual snow drifts that had alighted a fortnight earlier had then coalesced into grainy, opaque crystals compacted by a thaw. A following rain had then erased the remnants, leaving a sheen of ice in the shadows along the trail where many footfalls hardened it into a hazard to walk upon.

Striding across the arid plain with gravel mounds to either side and past a small pond glazed over when winter had brandished its steely armament we then rose northward along the trail with shrub and pioneer saplings withholding the expectation of winter passerines. They flickered sporadically from their hiding places: Song and and White- throated sparrows; Cardinals; Dark-eyed juncos; Goldfinch.

Approaching the heights of Mt. Tom, above the saucer-shaped Salmon River Cove, Oak and Black birch trees predominated, naked and brown. There flitted an occasional Red-bellied woodpecker, chattering methodically as it examined the trunks and limbs of its sylvan bailiwick.

The cove was still. The sun shown over its surface, unencumbered with ice. Not so the upper reaches of the Salmon River that still held fast to its silver armor. The Mute swans, those white galleons with the elegant necks, bobbed on the open water of the cove, but no eagles were observed dashing in their inimitable majesty across the waves in search of prey. So onward to the descent.

On the plain below Mt.Tom there was a delightful burst of activity. Dark-eyed juncos shared the tall Bluestem with a flock of Bluebirds so numerous that the day belonged to them. Their slate-blue backs! Their orange breasts! Who, then, could not resist scoffing at winter and thinking of spring?

Another advantageous spot to observe bird-life is where the Moodus River converges with Salmon River cove. There the Black ducks and Mallards lingered and dappled accompanied by several Canada geese. Still no eagles; the open waters gave them more opportunities to disperse.

Gillette’s Castle was the next stop, where pilgrims, lured by the mild weather, abounded, casting admiring glances at the stone edifice with its parapets and secret crenelations as well as the mute and mysterious incarnations of well-bred cats.

There is a great vista of the river and Selden Island to the south seen from the granite walls surrounding the castle heights. Peering downward, Common mergansers were observed rising and falling rhythmically on the choppy waves of the river. Studying the clouds and the tops of distant flood plain trees in hopes of glimpsing eagles proved fruitless, however. So, the eagles seen at the beginning of the trip were not a promise of things to come, but like so many things in life just a brief and elusive interlude. One needed to be content with what was seen, not imagined.

September and early October had been unseasonably warm—no frost. Colors on maples were just beginning to change, and asters and goldenrod in the fields were still much in flower among the dried grasses. Birders enjoyed a ±65° day with sun and clouds.

Starting at the “bean field” by Middletown’s soccer fields, birders trudged through tall mugwort, great ragweed, and stick-tights to spot 5 sparrow species: Song, Savannah, White-throated, Swamp, Field. The highlight at the bean field was a Chestnut-sided warbler.

A large flock of Cedar waxwings met birders at the parking lot at the Middletown Nature Garden. Two tiny juvenile gray tree frogs (less than 1/2” long) were spotted on a bush by the flooded ballfields.

Next stop: the meadows at the Durham Fair Grounds, where a cooperative Peregrine falcon gave us an extended view as he sat on a dead tree in the distance.

The sun arose and promised warmth,
The sky unblemished, blue and fair.
Two rivers conjoined, flowing from the north,
And three sailors were gathered there.

While two adroitly placed their canoe
And all their sundries by the water,
The other, tardy, had all he could do
To inflate a whale’s deflated bladder,

(Also by coincidence, a kayak).
With a hand full of procedures to abide,
The neophyte blew into the rubber sack
Just like the wolf who tried and tried

To blow down Piggy’s red brick house.
At last the thing was resurrected;
Perturbed, the guide began to grouse:
“If it leaks, will it be resuscitated?”

Replied the pilgrim,”Never fear,
I’m sure the vessel should last the day.”
With that they shoved off with their gear,
Paddling against the tide, made their way.

The guide proceeded to explain
With animation, plants unique
To the tidal nature of the flooded plain,
Meanwhile turning towards a secret creek.

The banks were lined with Tussock sedge;
A warbler flitted like a yellow dash
Where Arrowwood had formed a hedge
Beneath the skeletons of Green ash.

They slowly tacked and went upstream
And sought out the Golden club,
Whose namesake flowers brightly gleam,
And Sweetgrass waves, lemon-scented when you rub.

The wind began to rise and gust;
They navigated close to shore.
The granite bedrock, like shards of rust,
Deeply plunged into the river’s core.

Across a wide expanse of waves
The sailors advanced towards the Moodus,
A tributary that turns into a maze,
And where Mussels become your focus.

The fallen limbs of storm-struck trees
Brought further exploring to an end;
Back to the main stem, into the breeze,
And the kayak falls behind the bend.

When it appears the guide said,
“If you Keep that up, this trip will take all week!
There’s water up around your shoe!”
The pilgrim replies, “It’s just a tiny leak.”

The pilgrim thinks, “What’s the urgency all about?”
Just so; they laboriously made way.
The guide looks back and loudly shouts,
“We have to traverse this shallow bay!”

The goal: attain the Leesville dam.
The canoe tacked against the wind;
The tyro, though, was on the lamb;
That made the guide his plans rescind.

“Turn back, pull over, we’ll have lunch!”
The guide shouted. Much to their relief,
The kayak met the sand bank with a crunch,
Filled with water beyond belief.

The guide said,”Will it make it back?”
And gave the flaccid thing a stare.
The pilgrim smiled, enjoyed his snack,
Replied as if he hadn’t a care:

“No problem, just lend your sponge.”
And he proceeded to bail it out;
But no matter how he might expunge,
The water trickled in by some other route.

They embarked from that sandy shore
And made for port. The rubber craft,
Deflating, was left behind once more,
The kayak defying the rotating shaft.

It looked more like a plastic bag,
Or a jellyfish afloat upon the sea.
By God’s wounds! How the time did drag!
And worse, the wind now blew with glee;

It went against the bow, it held one back,
And judging speed and trajectory
The canoe began again to tack.
But where was the kayak, where could it be? Salmon River and kayaker

The pilgrim got too close to shore
And now he wallowed in the mud.
The guide then shouted oaths galore,
And slapped his paddle with a thud.

“You’ll have to get out and push the thing!”
The pilgrim complied, and awkwardly,
With slime forming a brown ring
Around his middle, began to bring

The bladder in to deeper pools.
The wind, it seemed, enjoyed the show,
As when a dog before its plaything drools,
Then exhaled and even harder blew.

There comes an end to everything, they say,
And so at last the boat launch neared,
From which eons ago they made their way;
But once again the tyro had disappeared. When finally all had made it back,
And wet equipment hauled up,
The kayak folded into an ungainly pack,
The tyro said, “I didn’t fill it enough,

But next time I will.”
Like a judge noting a defendant’s crime,
Pronouncing over the court room still,
“Next time? There ain’t gonna be no next time!”
The guide exclaimed abruptly, thoroughly having had his fill.

The parking lot of River Highlands State Park: what had we here? Gathered were a piano tuner (emeritus); a librarian (also emeritus); an object d’art (she knew who she was); and a poetaster (also by chance, the guide).

“You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish.” No, really, here’s a good-natured anecdote: Boris Pasternak, in his teens a budding composer before he found his true calling, poetry, had the famous A. N. Scriabin as mentor. But Scriabin disappointed Pasternak, for when he played back one of Pasternak’s more felicitous movements from one of his compositions on the piano, Scriabin was totally in the wrong key. Pasternak expressed surprise, to which Scriabin replied, “Any piano tuner can find the right key…but there is only one Scriabin.”

Along the railroad track, active now and forbidden to trespassers, the four miscreants strolled nonchalantly. Catbirds rose up predictably. There was a Goldfinch. Ears strained, eyes narrowed. From afar in the wood, was that a Wood thrush, first flower of spring? Then finally, an orange cipher appeared, torturing the necks of the observers. The Northern oriole chirped decisively as it probed the opening blossoms of the red and white oak trees.

Resident birds sang to the right and left of the train tracks: Mourning doves; Song sparrows; Cardinals. Then, ah, the mellifluous voice of the Rose-breasted grosbeak trilled down from the crown of a tree.

Nearing the golf course, high banks were on either side of the tracks where of old, the neotropical migrants would perch like the budding leaves of the black birch and maple. No more. Times are stingy. But several more Orioles danced in the canopy high overhead, like circus trapeze artists. One could imagine orange tights and breath-taking somersaults.

The sun had spread its yellow-green glow generously upon the earth as all turned from the rail bed onto the treed escarpment over-looking the Connecticut river. The river gently massaged the lime-green banks; sunlight caromed off its surface like glinting diamonds flashing from a princess’ tiara.

Particular attention was paid to the downward facing slope, an unstable conglomerate of sand and gravel covered with shrub and understory growth. Worm-eating warblers were the quarry here. They did not disappoint. Good ears picked up the staccato trill.

The trail undulated, reached a plateau, and suddenly, there in front of the party, a Black and White warbler squeaked its rusty wheel as it climbed the dark trunk of an oak. Someone heard the single note of an Ovenbird. And was that a Great-Crested flycatcher? Frenetic movement was observed on every limb of oak and beech; the Yellow rumps were in full display.

A knee-wrenching dip and then an ascent. There was another Worm-eating warbler, too shy to be seen. Stopping by an exhilarating overlook, D.C. Cormorants were noted flying up river. Ubiquitous Canada geese huddled together. Far off in the heights a Turkey vulture and a Red-tailed hawk hovered.

The path turned. The conversation flowed amiably. All became quiet in the treetops. Just as they approached the final lap towards the parking lot, from a sparse copse of diminishing red pine came the staccato voice of a Pine warbler. Good ears piano tuner! Unlike the poetaster-guide, you don’t need hearing aides — just yet!

Wildflowers at Giuffrida Park, April 24, 2021
Trillium and Trout Lily (Dog-tooth Violet) Trillium and Trout Lly

There’s April whose charms await the curious.
The sky is clear, the temperature mild,
The sun approvingly climbs above the trees
And casts in shadows the verdant path.
Towards the left, the White pines stand asunder,
While on the right the sparkling reservoir
Laps gently against the jagged shore.
The trunks of pine form valleys where
Canada lilies and Asters lay huddled there;
They bide their time ‘till May and August.
There betwixt the detritus of the storms
A triumvirate of leaves with nodding form
Denotes the charming presence of the Trillium,
A purple flower on each and every one of them.
The spotted leaves of the Dog-tooth-violet
Arise from the dander of the forest floor;
A long, thin stem supports yellow flowers galore.
Now the path ascends to a plateau,
And stepping gently as you go,
Look towards the edges of the broken talus,
Those grey rocks jumbled like the turrets of castles,
And see the crowds of Dutch Man’s breeches
With flowers like pantaloons the color of peaches.
There’s the Blood-root with leaves like fans
That chorus girls flutter as they dance.
The Ramps have decided to emerge;
Though simply green and flowerless, they surge
Upwards into the sunshine; their charm
Is in the culinary, eaten chilled or warm.
The hillside’s covered in Rue anemone,
Protruding as far as the eye can see
From amongst the trap rock crenelations.
Now follow the lower elevation,
And reach a plain beside the water’s edge;
There, growing next to Pennsylvania sedge,
The Spring beauty spreads its lance-like leaf,
Whose flower is delicate, its duration brief.
The Ginger root keeps its blossom out of sight,
Sequestered like some monastic acolyte.
The pathway ascends as if in invitation
And leads the climbers past ancient bastions
Of basalt whose flanks are crumpled with age.
Between the moss-covered stones Early saxifrage
Extend from their stems a subtle white flower.
Another plateau is reached, a sylvan bower
Where Hepatica and Rue anemone delight
The shadowy glades with purple and white Petals;
Wood anemone, too, are there,
All trembling gently in the soft, spring air.
The pinnacle is attained, Lamentation Mountain,
Where rivulets drain down as from a fountain.
The Yellow corydalis gathers proudly
Around the neck of rock outcrops like jewelry,
With miniature tubular blossoms bright;
Surrounding them, Orange falcate butterflies in flight.
The tour is finished, the descent is hard,
But grateful are those who’ve received
That which Spring has shared.

…then the harried prey desperately turns and bares its icy fangs, halting at once its determined pursuers.

Two ponds, separated by the Industrial Park Highway, restlessly foamed, the color of liquid mercury. A punishing northwest wind greeted those who would fancy a glimpse of waterfowl. Noses ran away with the wind’s vindictive icy breath, and tears welled up and dribbled from narrowed eyes. Fumbling with sluggish, numbed fingers, the spotting scope was finally set up. One could now hone in on the duck species complacently hovering on the surface of the pond.

Occasionally, several individuals would dive abruptly.
The water was grey, the surrounding habitat brown and bristling. Automobile traffic ripped by indifferently on the adjacent interstate highway. A pair of Black ducks swam out from underneath a thicket. This movement led the eye out across the pond. Sailing before a thatch of skeletal cattail that outlined the shore were several Widgeons cruising the surface of the water, interspersed with Mallards, Ring necks, and Canada geese.

The tripod with its scope was uplifted. Heads bent to blunt some of the cutting wind, a new position was taken up by the “duckers” closer to the edge of the pond. They stepped past the detritus of an automobile-centric society: dozens of little “nippers,” bottles of alcoholic fairy juice, were strewn on the roughly mown fescue along with crushed paper cups that once held 52 ounces of high fructose corn syrup, also intoxicating. There was a sudden splash and a brief flight of disturbed Green wing teal; the yellow bottoms of the males stood out like smudges of pastel on an artist’s palette.

Satisfied that every waterfowl was accounted for, it was down periscope and off to the next stop, North Farms Reservoir.

The wind continued to punish the observers as soon as they alighted from the car. A picnic table allowed for some quiet perusal. The ubiquitous Canada geese bobbed and quarreled with each other. Ring neck ducks dove constantly among the shreds of last summer’s pickerelweed. Farther out on the water surrounding a small island where a pair of Eagles contemplated another breeding season were Mute swans looking from a distance like white galleons anchored in safe harbor. Behind them were more geese. Several Bufflehead ducks were discerned diving with impunity into the cold depths of the pond that had just recently thrown off its icy chapeau.

Broadbrook Reservoir:
to get to the water’s edge one had to traverse a storm-racked pine and red maple woodland path littered with broken limbs that made passage difficult.

Diligently scanning the gyrating white caps on the reservoir was rewarded by the sight of Common mergansers determinedly navigating towards desirable fishing grounds. In a narrow cove still harboring a shelf of ice there were several Hooded mergansers, the males sporting signature white patches on their heads like triumphant martial emblems on the helmets of ancient Greek warriors.

Now, seeking a new vantage point, the observers circumvented the reservoir, arriving at a point where the roadway was nearer to the water.

There were more Common mergansers and a few Buffleheads rising and falling upon the agitated waves. Then the uplifted tails of a flock of Ruddy ducks were espied. They appeared from a distance like origami tossed symbolically onto the water with hopes of peace and tranquility in honor of some holiday.

Cromwell Meadows Salmon River creek l<br />ow tide

Last Stop:
And finally, the Cromwell Meadows, a fresh water marsh of much diversity. The sun shone through the naked branches of the flood plain trees leaving grey, wriggled shadows on the ground like the marks of an artist doodling with his graphite pencil. Wood ducks were the quarry here, and they did not disappoint, bursting upwards in flight from trysting spots among the buttonbush and spotted alder at the observer’s approach.

Eagles – Song of the Wind, January 23, 2021
Salmon River Overlook on Mount Tom Salmon River creek low tide

The sun shed its rays and glanced off of the horizon like reflections passing through a crystal bowl. Small, sharply edged clouds arose like galleons under full sail and chased one another casting shadows over the gray contour of the snowless winter landscape. The wind sang, cheeks distended, and the brown, desiccated oak leaves rustled and became animated, dancing to the rhythm. Overnight winter had arisen from its somnolence, let itself in to your parlor, and made itself at home in one of your easy chairs.

A path led around a mound of gravel spoils bristling with invasive Tree of heaven, multiflora rose, and shriveled patches of native goldenrod. White-throated sparrows lurked there scratching at the detritus; song sparrows flitted among the seed heads; and raucous jays perched, smudges of blue pastel against a grey background.

Turning out of the lee of the mound the full force of the northern wind plucked its frozen lyre, tingling the ears, and cheeks flushed, then became pale as the symphony played on.

At the peak of Mt. Tom there was a clearing overlooking the Salmon River cove. The water was dark and restless, moving freely, resisting the inevitable sealing of its surface to the cold. The hills rose blue-black above the cove, sharply outlined in the pellucid atmosphere. In the distance the surface of the river’s bend was dotted with the white crowns of mute swans. A cloud tried to pierce the sun and was shredded into grey-white shards. Standing breathlessly gazing at the heavens, the wind singing its tune, looked for the wide arc of an eagle’s wings, but finding them imagined rather than seen, proceeded to move on to the lower plain where now lyres, now violin strings played sharply against the ears.

Treaded along a path past the foot of the hillside and a hemlock copse where a golden crowned kinglet twittered. But finding no eagles moved on to the next stop.

Beside the convergence of the Moodus and Salmon Rivers a thin wisp of exposed mud and sedge was refuge to a mixed flock of Canada geese, mallards, and black ducks. The waters around them gyrated to the song of the wind; the tips of the waves rose and fell like animated feet lifted above a dance floor. The waterfowl nodded in time, stoic and complacent in the face of the serious arrival of winter.

On to Gillette’s Castle: it hunched like a grey, multifaceted gemstone pulled from a conglomerate of pegmatite. Pilgrims cantered about, took photographs, and passed under the stone arches of a train station with an emblematic feline winking gleefully down at them.

On the parapet of the Castle is an expansive view of the Connecticut River Valley with the edge of Selden Island folded against the left bank of the river. The river, its agitated surface like the jagged teeth of a table saw cutting the air, tossed some common mergansers asunder; they bobbed patiently until deciding to skillfully propel themselves upstream.

And the wind sang, “who’s that ‘a croakin’?” Several common ravens cork-screwed over head, in complete command and confident of their flying ability.

Winter used the song of the wind to herald its arrival. Though no eagles soared that particular time and place, yet they were keenly felt, etched in the mind even more so by their absence.

After a desiccated summer and early autumn, the former bean field spread out before them, an undulating brittle forest of Goldenrod, with formerly glowing yellow flowers reduced to tan, friable seeds. The Mugwort stood awry in coats of dull green climbing and clinging to the great mound of gravel. Looking out at the expanse one could see out-growths of Russian Olive interspersed with dense clumps of Multiflora Rose. Pioneer Black Locust trees lifted grey, crenulated limbs skyward, skeletal and forlorn, with all of their leaves shed.

Apropos, perhaps, Black and Turkey vultures hovered above, dissipating gradually over the distant treetops and into the mild yellow haze. The birders circled the gravel mound. Song sparrows began their teasing, flickering flight, rising upward and dashing downwards into the mugwort. Around a barren waste area birds retreated before the advancing humans—White-throated sparrows and Palm warblers.

Goldenrod, grown nearly chest-high, dusted the group with seed as they plunged down hill, bisecting the old field. To the left and right Sparrows and Dark-eyed juncos darted and dove into the underbrush. Great tangles of Multiflora Rose made the pathway difficult. By a circuitous route, back-tracking through the thickets, the birders finally descended to a bowl-shaped declivity bristling with Silky Dogwood. The ground was mercifully dry. A Red Maple sported Mourning doves and a flock of Cedar waxwing on its barren limbs. Someone discovered a Ruby-crowned kinglet.

Along the roadway a line of maples waved yellow and red leaves loosely in the warming morning light. Above them a Red-tailed hawk flew hastily out of view. Around an arid plain of sand, normally a shallow pool with bronzed cattails at the periphery, was a hedgerow enlivened with a burst of activity. The Song and White-throated sparrows dashed into the cover, stymieing the birders. A Swamp sparrow stood out briefly.

The sun rose into an accommodatingly clear and warming sky. The wind touched the cheek pleasantly. The air smelled of fallen leaves and mushrooms gathered below dark and shady hollows. In the Nature Garden, the path was mercifully welcoming, the obstructive underbrush shunted to the side by the hand of man. Peering into the undergrowth of Dogwood and Eastern Red Cedar, the movement of avian species brought the birders to attention, their binoculars poised before their eyes. A Golden-crowned kinglet, a Rufus-sided towhee, a Catbird, and a Common Yellow-throated warbler were quickly identified.

The way led to an open field. How brilliant the atmosphere! Someone espied an Osprey soaring, clinging, perhaps, as it glided to the memory of summer.

Treading again on the grey crushed stone path threading it way through the Nature Garden, a post agricultural habitat held in suspension by the plan of management, the birders encountered a smattering of Titmice, an industrious Downy woodpecker, and Yellow-rumped warblers. A grand White Oak, broken with age but still an object of awe, pointed the way to the end of the trail.

The Durham Meadows is a flat, green table top punctuated with interesting hedgerows and outlined in the distance by a Red Maple wetland. A burst of Dark-eyed juncos took to the low-lying branches of a Pin Oak. The birders approached the hedgerow and the dry earth made the going easy. The row was uncharacteristically vacant. They crossed a streamed where Song sparrows shyly prayed to the forbs, and came round to an open field again. In the distance over the Red Maple swamp in an expansive sky, a spray of Tree swallows, too numerous to count, dove and climbed in dizzying array like some arial circus performers. They indicated to all the temporal nature of the seasons, of the mild Indian summer day, and of the observers themselves, and that migration was the true way of life. But also, for those earthbound and facing the silver-grey future, the swallows represented an enduring hope of Spring.

The bow of the canoe slipped laboriously over streamers of Coon tail and invasive Eurasian milfoil. Water chestnut with emerald-green rosettes floating at the surface are anchored to a seed in the mud that is spiked like a knight’s medieval mace. In the low flood plain starkly rising are dead Green ash trees, victims of the Asian emerald borer beetle.

A halo of yellow sunlight crowns the tips of emergent water-plants: Arrow arum; Plantain; Pickerelweed; Sweet flag; all exhibiting mustaches of brown detritus as a result of the tidal ebb. Breaking the sword-like fronds of Sweet flag in half exudes an intoxicating aroma of lemon-lime. The pale yellow-green spadix of the Golden club are splayed out limply in the shallow reaches.

Passing a chirping Osprey warning loudly from its nest, and tracing a wide arch, following the channel of the Salmon river to retain water beneath the hull, the canoe passed Great blue herons stalking through the weeds, and then entered the outflow of the Moodus river in search of mussels. Two brown lumps on a log settled in the mud suddenly arose. The immature Bald eagles fluttered to the nearby copse of trees and stared out suspiciously from between the glowing leaves.

The Moodus river was thin and clear. The bottom of its sandy lower stretches were littered with clams. Penetrating farther upstream the banks narrowed, bristling with a sward of lime-colored vegetation. The current began to hasten. The water gurgled as it flowed and created a riffle over a line of round stone outwash. Antediluvian mussels were buried in the sand or, expired, lie prostrate in the mud.

Returning to the Salmon river past hissing Mute swans and a Kingbird twitching its stiff white tail feathers while sitting on a branch of an over-hanging Pin oak tree, the canoe slipped by Hemlocks towering along the eastern shore. On the opposite bank was a low-lying tangle of cattails and sedge with clumps of Blue flag and flashes of male Red wing black birds with epaulets of yellow-red as they hovered over their nests.

There was an open stretch of water where the land falls into slashes of granite bedrock, their crevices punctuated by Azaleas dropping spent lavender petals onto the surface of the river. There was a shallow inlet formed between the mainland and a narrow island; the bottom rose quickly and grasped the underside of the canoe. The tidal flow surreptitiously inched around and over a Grey birch windfall. The pause allowed one to examine the underwater world with its metropolis of macro invertebrates and a school of minnows dashing frenetically into the shadows.

The canoe eventually pushed forward once again past Canada geese with their numerous goslings. The water was shallow but level with a sandy bottom. Farther upstream a slim but exquisite ancillary channel opened up. The crowns of trees reached down as if to caress the head and back. A tunnel under the highway loomed darkly ahead. Feeling the cold concrete walls with the hands and the tip of the paddles, the canoeists emerged on the Salmon river once again just downstream of the Leesville dam.

The canoe balked in the rapid current. Rocks lurked just below. A narrow channel was indicated by the rush of churning bubbles. Pushing hard, paddles striking impediments, the canoeists eventually reached a calm pool of water circling beside a granite wall. From there it was an easy pull to shore.

A cacophony of water flowed over and past the dam and fish ladder prominently situated adjacent to it. Disembarking and surmounting the steep bank, the canoeists stood in the sun, triumphant and at once humbled. Afternoon storms were imminent. On the horizon clouds arose like the pages of a book wherein your future lay.

How tentative life is! Like our own temporal drops of blood and water so too, the delicate wildflowers of forest and basalt cliffs emerge and bravely display their colors. Under towering giants, the yellow flowers of the Dog-tooth violets pray to the pine needle litter. Nodding trillium with open expressions of purple joy gather in the green shade to gossip to one another. Around them, mute and unveiling, are the actors of late spring and summer: Canada lilies and Wood asters.

A talus-strewn path, black with moisture, leads to a patch of Dutchman’s breeches, interspersed with Bloodroot. The Dutch-man’s breeches tremble in the light breezes of the spring morning, and the Bloodroot’s white parasols are open to the sunshine.

Along the slopes, Ramps burst from the surrounding blankets of brown oak leaves like lime-colored fingers. Rue anemone with their daisy-like crowns of white petals commingle with clumps of Pennsylvania sedge with thin, subtle, unassuming brown or tan flowers.

The path is difficult. The basalt rolls under the feet like ball bearings, but the rewards are great: monocultures of delicate Spring beauty, pale lavender with long, slender basal leaves; clutches of Ginger, shyly covering their purple, bell-shaped flowers; Blue cohosh respectfully standing by, content to let others take center stage before they too, take cue, and emerge in their own glorious coat of arms.

A difficult climb reveals rocky crevices sprouting Early Saxifrage and culminates in level fields of grass punctuated with Rue anemone and white, blue and violet Round-leaved Hepatica. Rising upward through rivulets of cascading streamlets, the path finally reaches a denouement, the undulating pinnacle of Lamentation Mountain.

A determined search leads to a sigh of relieved discovery: The fragile yellow tubular flowers of Yellow Corydalis. It clings to the mountains crenulations with a stubborn will, as we all embrace this earth, with no guarantee of tenure.

0830 Industrial Parkway Ponds
The sky like a blue palm of an enormous hand; in the center of the palm, a yellow sphere glowing. A light wind blowing across the cold waters of the ponds chilled the face, filled the nostrils with moisture. The edges of the ponds bristled with cattails and spotted alder. On one of these ponds, nestled against this cover, were multi-colored male Wood ducks escorting the duller females. Black ducks bobbed for weeds. Nearby, Mallards pirouetted on the water’s pewter surface.

Crossing over Industrial Parkway to an adjacent waterbody huddled close to the bustle of the I-91 Interstate that echoed its cacophony of ripping traffic noise incessantly, were, in perfect equanimity, Buffleheads with their signature white and black bodies; Green wing teal, whose males sported heads of variegated cinnamon and green, and had posteriors of gold; Plain grey Widgeons; Mallards, white, green and brown; and Black ducks with olive-green beaks. A pair of ubiquitous Canada geese casually paddled near one another, occasionally nodding their heads graciously.

0930 State Boat Launch North Farms Reservoir
A northwest wind fetched leaden wavelets towards shore. The spotting scope trembled upon the tripod. A pair of Mallards disappeared behind some alders. The eye was led to the farther shore where a numerous gaggle of Canada geese pecked at the sparse grasses of the residential lawns that spread down towards the water.

On the distant island with its beard of oak and black birch, an eagle’s nest was observed with a hopeful parent sitting incubating eggs. Soon, within easy viewing range, her mate alighted on a skeletal tree. It hunched stoically and purposefully upon a limb like an avian god.

01020 Broad Brook Reservoir
Passing through a gate and walking over an abandoned access road led through wet seeps and broken boughs of trees to the edge of the reservoir and a viewing point.

There in the distance bobbing like Japanese origami were the outlines of rafts of waterfowl. Up came the spotting scope. Squinting an eye, holding a hand on the body of the instrument and dialing in the focus, led to the discovery of Bufflehead, but also Common Mergansers. One Merganserl would dive and suddenly a whole flock disappeared below the surface in an aquatic ballet. The Green wing teal spread out in their own columns, appearing diminutive in the distance. Occasionally the ducks would rise in unison, fly several hundred yards, and then alight with a communal splash.

Setting the scope on the shoulder and moving to a different vantage point was rewarded with the sight of a nervous Hooded Merganser paddling offshore. Above, like shepherds tending their flocks, soared three immature Bald eagles. Rising, diving, trailing each other, the kings of raptors flapped their elongated black wings and tossed in the wind.

The dark eagles floated past and the eye was led up, up into the vault of heaven, and rested on the outline of Castle Craig, the firm, grey stone tower that rose from its traprock ridge like a prophecy.

Arising in the dark and glancing at the superfluous winter undergarments laid out carefully the night before: a January week-end like no other. Temperatures predicted to lift into the mid 60’s and beyond. Bicycle weather.

Machimoodus Park: brown, dry and sparse. Dark-eyed Juncos and White throated sparrows fidget in the grit surrounding the blonde-red little bluestem. Blue birds alight on the crabapple limbs.

Passing the open fields and arid gravel pits, climbing gradually to the pinnacle of Mt.Tom overlooking a fully open Salmon river cove…peering through a lattice-work of bare oak and tree-of-heaven boughs…seeing rafts of white cotton swabs, the figures of Mute swans, elegantly dipping their long, sinuous necks below the brilliantly glinting surface of the water in search of weeds.

Scanning the skies, clouds hovering in patches, the sun unusually benign, palpable. No eagles to be found. A Common raven chortles in the distant hill.

Hesitation; then a downward spiral to a field below the precipice. Brittle expanse of bluestem and the skeletons of goldenrod gone to seed. Pilgrims appear walking their dogs.

Leaving Machimoodus and arriving at Cove road overlooking the convergence of the Moodus river with the Salmon. A couple who had been participating in the annual DEEP eagle count relate: “Oh, yes, we just had a burst of activity by the Salmon river boat launch; the eagles came up from the hot water canal of the closed nuclear power plant. We think we had an immature Golden.”

Not surprising, the Golden eagle. A decision was made to visit Gillette’s Castle Park and the arrival there was propitious; it coincided with an Ecuadorian festival. While one of the eagle party craned his neck to finally observe an immature bird hovering over the tree tops, a parade of brightly dressed men, women and children swayed and danced to Andes rhythms pulsating from the speakers of their tape recorder. The women’s long, shining black hair, impeccably coiffured and tied up with red ribbons, flashed in the sun. Young men wore expansive, Mardi Gras-type head gear with tassels that swung merrily in time with the dance steps. Little boys and girls squirted strips of soap into the hair and onto the clothes of the performers. And then all held hands and sa-shayed to the drum beats, including those whose eyes were searching for eagles.

The large, pirouetting avians came down from above, floated in tangent, and seemed for a brief moment to participate in the festivities. And the soft zephyrs of an uncharacteristically warm January day, the shining red and white clothes of the Ecuadorians, the sound of the flutes and drums, the joy and excitement of the children, all belied the turmoil that would come in a month’s brief passing.

After a lachrymose week, the Sparrow Crawl began on a damp but moderate morning, the sky overcast like an eyelid closed over a dazed and sleepy eye.

Four had gathered. It is the anticipation of the event that hovers like an ethereal bubble floating over a soap dish; this is what excites.

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(and wait to watch the water clear, I may);
I shan’t be gone long — You come too. Robert Frost

08:30 — We arrived at the bean field, an overgrown paradise of goldenrod, mugwort, and pasture rose. Looking skyward we were welcomed by a burst of Turkey and Black vultures teetering in the calm updraft. Pursed lips emitted high pitched “pishing”; a recording of a Screech owl neighed like a whistling mare. The sorcerer’s tricks animated the forbs—a huge mound of gravel with its coat of mugwort became enlivened with motion as the Song sparrows flickered in a storm of feathers. Most numerous were the Palm warblers whose enervated tails bobbed and blinked yellow semaphores hidden beneath their posteriors.

Stalking around the gravel mountain and entering a plateau of thick underbrush consisting of goldenrod interspersed with multiflora rose and Russian olive, a yellow flame flashed frenetically then was gone. A female Common yellowthroat? We had to let it go.

Our group pushed farther down into a bowl of wetlands. A couple of deer jumped nervously out of the thickets jerking up and down as if they were on trampolines, the whites of their tails uplifted, and just as suddenly disappeared. Curious Swamp sparrows arose on the clumps of dogwood as we passed by, and then the reliable White-throated sparrows appeared and stared narrowly at us.
Surrounding the bean field are copses of checkered red and yellow hardwood, and dark jade evergreens. Such stalwarts of any field trip were noted there: Downy and Red-bellied woodpeckers; White-breasted nuthatches, Red-tailed Hawk; House finch.

010:00 — The Nature Garden, Randolph Road, Middletown.
The grey, granulated pathways of the Nature Garden beckoned to us, as the yellow brick road invited Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Lips pursed; the recorder echoed its Screech owl. Silence at first; but there, where the ocher berries of the poison ivy vines were numerous, came a burst of activity. Robins and Cedar waxwings feasted on this much maligned, but important autumn food staple.

Throughout the garden paths food supplies were adequate: the cedars were laden with charcoal-colored berries; the goldenrod had gone to seed.

Yellow-rump warblers dashed like shoppers hurrying along grocery aisles. Feasting along with them were White-throated sparrows. There were no surprises today, however.

011:00 — Durham Meadows.
The Meadows are a wonderful tableau of mown field, tall grass, and hedgerows punctuated by mature ash and red maple. With a bit of effort we prompted shy Savannah sparrows to come out on stage. The ubiquitous Song sparrows briefly made a bow. As for the rest of the cast, they stayed mostly behind the curtain. A Phoebe, uncharacteristically mercurial, appeared for a second and then was gone. Stalking the hedgerow where a watery ditch drained around a swampy area produced Redwing blackbirds. Palm warblers enlivened the branches of Red osier dogwood. A Kestrel was seen on a skeletal ash in the distance, and a nervous Coopers hawk, interrupted from its hunting, flew at head level into a patch of cattails. Lastly, an inquisitive Mockingbird perched on top of a multiflora rose and looked askance at these odd human “crawlers.”

May they all crawl again in a year’s turning.

4 participants: 4 sparrow species; 26 species total.

Sharon Dellinger, secretary for MAS, led a guided bird walk through our Helen Carlson Sanctuary on June 1st as part of CT Forest and Parks Association’s annual Trails Day Weekend. Rodrigo Pinto, board member, who has been helping to prepare the trail, also led the way. Seven additional people attended, including a very young birder and two millennials on their first bird walks! Hikers came from Hamden, Marlborough, Wolcott, Berlin, and Rocky Hill.

We observed 35 species during the two hours spent in the field. Highlights include two Yellow-billed Cuckoos, several American Redstarts and Warbling Vireos. Before 8 am Sharon heard two Barred Owls caterwauling behind the bog. After the group dispersed, Chris Howe and Sharon observed a Red-Shouldered Hawk getting mobbed by a united force of Common Grackles and a male Baltimore Oriole. A Yellow-throated Vireo made itself known and with a little persistence they were able to see the beautiful male singing it’s slow, repetitive “3-A” song. We were thankful for the good weather and insect repellent (the mosquitoes were fierce!). The Helen Carlson Sanctuary is a sight to behold.

Mattabassett River Canoe Trip, June 1, 2019
Green Dragons emerging (with poison ivy leaves) Green Dragon emerges

A warming June sun endowed the riparian trees and shrubs with a crown of gold. The camouflaged canoe with its shining teak-oiled gunwales slid into the Connecticut River over tan and black shoreline deposits, and felt the pulse of the current, tame now after the recent spring freshet. Passing by Wilcox island, home to a Bald eagle’s nest, the paddlers glided easily with the curvature of the channel, and entered the mouth of the Mattabassett that lapped at the concrete bulwarks of the Route 9 highway bridge.

The paddles silently dipped and broke the dark surface of the stream, and a succession of coordinated strokes brought the canoe around a curvature of verdant riverbank. It was an emerald contrast to the nervous machinations of the adjacent highway whose intrusive noise never fully relented,but became an increasingly distant distraction as the canoe plied farther up the Mattabassett’s meanders.

Fishermen made paths through the Ostrich ferns along the banks. Smoke gently rose from fires. Someone was pulling in a large fish; there were excited shouts. The sun glowed golden on the supple green ferns and radiated from the green scales of the capitulating fish.

The canoe soon passed the confluence of the Coginchaug and Mattabassett rivers, notably marked with a beard of pickerel weed and sedge. A Great egret stalked the shallows, standing out like a white exclamation point among the lime-green fronds. Great blue herons arose around every bend, squawking displeasure.

The Mattabassett has a 68 square mile watershed. It is a low-gradient river with a u-shaped channel. Its banks are varied, with numerous avenues lined with tussock sedge leading away from the main stem of the river into the interior of a wet meadow. This meadow was once the glacial Lake Middletown.

Past an abandoned eagle’s nest, D.C. Cormorants rose up, and Red wing blackbirds kir-ker-eed from their vantage points upon active beaver lodges. Great crested flycatchers chirped in the silver maple canopy. Rounding curves where wind fallen trees stretched their denuded branches into the tea-colored water, the canoe penetrated farther up stream.

The black banks glistened in the sun. The tide slowly rose. Cottonwood trees shed their seeds like snowflakes that didn’t melt; they filled the air and punctuated the surface of the river and gathered in great white balls of fluff. The canoe glided underneath highway overpasses where Pigeons brooded and nested on iron support beams, and past urban intrusions along Route 72, but just as quickly floated away from them.

The quickening of the current and the visible bottom of the river coming up to meet the hull of the canoe denoted an imminent end of navigable waters. The canoe pulled up to a muddy disembarkation.

Avoiding the poison ivy monoculture, the canoeists noted numerous Arisaema dracontium, Green dragon plants. They are members of the arum family with a long, dull yellow spadix, or tongue of flowers, that make the plants so unique and interesting. Impatiens, or touch-me-nots, grew to phenomenal heights in the moist, rich substrate. A Yellow swallow tail butterfly kept its proboscis imbedded in the wet sand extracting liquids and minerals.

The river rapidly flowed over chunks of Portland arkose, the brownstone bedrock of the river. In shallow pools invasive Asian clams and native mussels, mostly Elliptio and Alewife floaters, lay submerged in sandy deposits, shells awry. From the shaded banks a Phoebe flitted from shrub to shrub, and an Eastern wood Pee-wee called again and again, reminding one of the persistence of life along one of our most urban waterways.

…and at my back I always hear, time’s winged chariot hurrying near… Andrew Marvel

There is no time now; it drips away like the shadows from the trees as the May sun struggles through the obscuring clouds. Oak leaves unfurl from buds, supple and unblemished in a skin of lime-green chlorophyll. Flowers emerge and droop in grape-like clusters. The inch worms dangle from gossamer threads defying gravity, but become vulnerable to the arriving neo-tropical migrants. Tentatively, the birds alight singly at first; then in determined waves, unimpeded by walls or barriers.

There is no time now; in the stillness of early morning the birders gather to partake in the rite of spring. Vicariously, they too have survived the immense flight over the Gulf of Mexico; relished the bountiful offerings of the coast; or suffered the paucity of surcease in the suburbs. They have, like their feathered compatriots, staved off the confusion of blaring midnight suns emanating from cities, and seen companions flail against reflective walls of glass, an ignominious end to their journey. The avian-within-human became as light as a twenty-five cent piece, and alighted on the limbs of welcoming oaks.

Proceeding down the now-active railroad bed, it is “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears,” for it is with those organs that many of the “objects of desire” are discerned. The Wood thrush sings, first voice of spring, and resuscitates youth and hope in the breast. Then a Scarlet tanager vocalizes somewhere off in the canopy; it flies forth in a surprising display, a black and red note upon a green symphonic score. The staff is suddenly filled with two more Tanagers. A hidden Baltimore oriole’s bright warble lends a sense of harmony; if only it would come down from the canopy and take a bow at the podium!

There is no more time now. A golf course comes into view. White balls on an emerald carpet take the place of the Killdeer that have been seen there in the past. Tree swallows dip at a manicured pool of water, bubbling like grey champagne under the influence of an oxygenating pump. A Blue bird materializes on a branch of a Red maple.

Turning away from the rail bed, the group ascends to an overlook of the Connecticut river. The freshet continued, and the river dutifully performed its work, that of transporting silt. The sloping trail dips and rises, levels off. Oak and hickory trees leaf out, towering above and suffering one to crane the neck uncomfortably. A Great-crested flycatcher called: “Can you see me? Here I am, or maybe I’m over there”.

At the edge of an eroding bluff underlain with soft gravel, a whispering Worm-eating warbler stealthily moved through the understory. The steep slopes are a preferred habit for this specie.

The familiar sound of a squeaky wheel reached the ears, and a Black-and-white warbler wound its way around a trunk of a Black birch. Teacher-teacher-teacher! The Ovenbird is loud, but its corporal presence is indistinct.

The trail becomes as precipitous as a camel’s back. At last it reaches a plateau with a view of the yellow waters of the rapidly flowing river. There is no more time. Bicyclists hurry past with determined, pumping strokes, breaking the spell, but only for a moment.

The call of a Screech owl emanates from a machine. Another Worm-eating warbler replies, and then two Barred owls, woken from their diurnal meditations, hoot in the far distance: “Who beckons us from sleep, who beckons us from sleep, who-wa?” The conjurer with the recorder smiles.

The trail bends seductively; a flurry of activity comes with it: a Black-throated green warbler dashes forward; then a Red-eyed and a Yellow-throated vireo make an appearance. There is a multitude of Yellow-rumps! Necks are aflame, but breasts are requited.

A slow progression takes the group to the starting point of their trip. Sighs of satisfaction. There is no more time now; it cannot be grasped, it cannot be captured. The golden sun moves through the canopy of trees like a scythe.

April’s showers brought forth April’s flowers, for there was little sunshine to succor the more than twenty species noted amid the traprock crevices and woodlands of Giufridda Park.

Low hanging clouds like beards of Biblical patriarchs trickled beads of moisture down upon the shoulders of the botanists as they tread over the gnarled roots of the white pines punctuating the path beside the reservoir. Asters patiently awaited their spotlight on the stage—late summer. Surrounding them were Canada lily-of-the-valley in bud and the spotted, lime-green leaves of Dog’s-tooth violets, from which buttery-yellow blossoms nodded in an expression of obeisance. Under the chaff of pine boughs plucked from the trunks of trees by the icy hands of winter, Nodding trillium emerged with their signature purple flowers lending hopeful color to the gloom of the wet understory. They stood in clumps, shoulder to shoulder; silent, regal, and self-aware.

A damp chill breeze flowed over the undulating path and the lapping, grey, cold water along the shores of the reservoir. Chipping sparrows materialized as if by magic from the pine needled floor of the earth. Higher up came the feint chitterings of pine warblers.

Rising to a plateau lying below talus debris falling from trap rock cliffs, the botanists discovered Ramps (wild leeks) surrounded by Bloodroot and Dutchman’s breeches. Stalks of Rue anemone topped with rays of white eyelash-like flowers arose between blocks of broken, grey basalt. Making their way along the slippery jumbled talus between which flowed rivulets of rain water, the botanists puzzled over some specimens, or positively ascertained others. There were the reliable Spring beauties; the Blue cohosh in bud; the Ginger with its endearing, shy bloom; and the Hepatica with its fuzzy, clover-shaped basal leaves. Both white and purple Violets were noted.

A difficult but rewarding climb to Lamentation mountain added Early saxifrage, Pussytoe, and fields of Rue anemone to the list of wonderments. Moisture fell from the lachrymose sky, then relented. Following the accordion-like trail of Lamentation led to the site of Yellow and Pale corydalis. The Yellow corydalis held its tube-shaped flower demurely to its breast, but the Pale was still in bud. There, too, the Columbine deigned to tarry, and would blossom on a future day.

Looking down from the promontory on an open field, a pair of Turkeys were seen dancing in a timeless rite of spring: the male displaying, the female pecking the grass in an expression of practised nonchalance. The spell was rudely dissolved by an intrusion in the guise of a golf cart whose operator inexplicably drove straight at the romancing Turkeys, driving them from the field. And the earth’s progeny, though seemingly mute, spoke as vociferously as if they were blaring trumpets: how to explain the incongruousness of mankind?

0830 Bishop’s Ponds
The ponds are split by a blacktop thruway that weaves its way through a vast industrial complex. Above the banks of one of the ponds a steady flow of automobiles ripped along Interstate I-91. In spite of this unlikely setting, dabbling and diving in the grey, cold waters, or shyly insinuating themselves into the clumps of cattail, were ten species of ducks: Black, Mallard, Green-wing teal, Bufflehead, Ring-neck, Hooded merganser, Gadwall, Widgeon, Lesser Scaup, and Wood.

Four participants peered through spotting scopes. Eyes and noses watered as they leaned over the instruments or scanned with binoculars. A cold northwest wind pinched the cheeks and boxed the ears. Nevertheless everyone was satisfied with the diversity. An eleventh species, Common merganser, was noted in the opposite pond.

Yet there was a sense of poignancy: a Canada goose had been killed trying to walk across the thruway. Its carcass lay crumpled and inert in the half frozen grass next to the pond. Standing beside it was a companion goose, probably the dead bird’s mate, left to mourn a succession of empty spring days.

0930 North Farms Reservoir
Bright sunshine, cold wind persisting, foaming waves chasing and lapping over each other, tossing Ring bill gulls into the air. Against a vast waterscape of Canada geese, Mallards and Ring-necks, tree swallows, the first of the season, formed a parabola over the waves. On an island distant, bristling with Great blue heron nests, a Bald eagle sat in its own stick nursery warming eggs. Soon it took flight making the waterfowl cluck nervously. The eagle’s mate then flew in and perched on a nearby tree limb.

1030 Broad Brook Reservoir
Passing through a gate and proceeding down a paved path, indiscernible beneath years of detritus, and skipping over pockets of late winter puddles formed from melting snow, the “duckers” set up scopes in the understory at the edge of the water. A flotilla of feathered galleons bobbed on the animated surface of the reservoir. Most of the species had already been noted in the previous stops. But then came the discovery of a line of Ruddy ducks dancing almost imperceptibly in the far distance beside a causeway.

Another vantage point was reached where waves scurried into a narrow cove past white pine trees looming along the shore. Various raptors up-welled into bruised March clouds: Eagles and Red-tailed hawks. Common ravens barrel-rolled through the sky and teased the Eagles. A Sharp-shinned hawk banked over the reservoir and was lost behind a copse of oaks. Looking upwards beyond the shining horizon towards a far off promontory the dark, impassive crown of Castle Craig jutted from a trap rock ridge as if it were communing with the belly of a cloud.

Winter had risen from its autumnal somnolence, rubbed icy hands over glistening eyes with lashes like long, silvery icicles and blew cold, congealing breath over lakes, ponds and rivers. Treading the brown, crusted earth, those seeking eagles at first encountered a large mound of gravel bristling with the remnants of last summer’s goldenrod and mugwort. White crowned sparrows and dark eyed juncos rose and fell among the shattered fronds; blue jays, cardinals and Tufted titmice enlivened the boughs of black locust and a thicket of stag horn sumac surrounding the edge of the mound.

The pathway led past a small frozen pond shiny as the lid of a stainless steel sauce pan. The gravel beneath the boots of the birders was like crumbled, hard brown sugar. They climbed slowly past fields being reclaimed by a succession of immigrant pioneers: various forbs such as little blue stem, and pine seedlings and black locust. A red bellied woodpecker gave a staccato exhortation; a downey tapped on a decrepit hemlock.

Breathing deepened. The exhalation drifted away like steam from a teapot. Oak trees scratched at the underside of the azure sky with their naked limbs. A white breasted nuthatch chirped as it jerkily danced head first down the side of a black birch.

The promontory reached. The climbers stood gazing down at the shining saucer that was Salmon River cove. Someone had bent a rod of silver solder and put it in place of the river. The sky was aflame with bright blue reflection as cool as the haughty glance of a Tsar.

No eagles in view. Crows on the distant hill side cawed in unison with the guttural baritone bellowing from underneath the ice sheets as the incoming tide forced air pockets to flee before its inexorable flow.

Retreating from Mt Tom, the party arrived at Cove Road. At the mouth of the Moodus River black ducks and Canada geese slept moodily on a thin strip of open water. Swans gracefully manipulated their mud-splattered necks among submerged weeds.

From Cove Road to Gillette Castle was a short drive. There, on the familiar stone ramparts looking across the Connecticut River, mottled with ice sheets, an eagle was finally observed, a black-caped, white headed Plantagenet of the flood plain. Shrugging its wings as if to say, “No hope here” the eagle soon was off soaring farther down river towards the open coast.

By late morning the temperature rose but slightly Standing chilled in the hardened mud of the landing beside the East Haddam swing bridge another dot was observed in a tree on an island in the Connecticut River. The eagle perched there conserving energy, impassive, oblivious and inscrutable.

The 44th annual Mattabeseck Salmon River Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 16th, 2018. Over 25 participants braved the rain to identify and count birds. The small waterbodies were covered with ice, which reduced the number of waterfowl observed on ponds. As of the print date of this edition of Wingbeat, the tentative total number of bird species observed was 68. This number may increase as feeder counts are received.

Please consider joining one of the teams next year. We are confident that any newcomers will be welcomed with open arms. All levels of birding expertise are welcome. Please contact, Sharon Dellinger, rsdell@comcast.net or Doreen Jezek, dajezek@gmail.com for more information. You’ve got a year to get ready!

Two trips were scheduled. Sadly, the first trip was rained out. On the second trip several people attempted to locate any type of owl at very usual and dependable locations. NOTHING!

Then, at the last stop (Middlefield, where Coginchaug River goes under Miller Rd) and just as we were about to call it quits, a Barred Owl called from the woods maybe 60 feet from us. It called for a while and then moved further in the woods. A first for MAS Owl prowls.

… And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk, their shoulders black with rains…
Conrad Aiken

0820 Long Hill Road; former vegetable field
Standing tentatively with shoulders hunched against the persistent mists…below, the field dripping moisture, shaped like a huge catcher’s mitt sprouting mugwort, goldenrod, assorted other forbs, and shrub-scrub such as russian olive, crabapple, dogwood, multiflora rose. The thickness of the vaporous air swirling with liquid diamonds and pearls ascending from the firmament absorbed the birders’ “pishing”, a call to alert the birds hiding in the undergrowth.

Flanking a large bristling mound of gravel, some movement was detected and the recording of species began: white-throated, chipping and song sparrows. They dodged between clumps of mugwort bent with rain.
At the center of the depression a ruby-crowned kinglet, a swamp sparrow, and palm warblers with warm yellow underparts flickering like semaphores spread out before the birders’ advance. The bare head of one of the observers glistened and thighs became saturated with dense moisture as they thread through clumps of goldenrod. The chase made one disregard the overcast outpouring of autumnal tears.

Several more song sparrows and a savannah sparrow: the compiler’s wet pencil scratched laboriously over the page.

0930 The Nature Garden; Randolph Road
Subdued, black wet paths led past red maple woodland pockmarked with pools of water. Alarmed mallards rose as one in a staccato burst of feathered wings and a parting cry: Yack, yack! Stubborn mists cloaked the observers as they peered into the jagged edges of eastern red cedars, or glanced upwards over the tops of dogwoods and oak trees. A turn into a field revealed skies ashen as the faces of inanimate monuments, but scant avians.

Then a path through a red maple grove gave surprises: a black-throated blue warbler; phoebe; veery; house wren.

Out into the open once again, and the saturated atmosphere continued to bathe the stoic and self-composed bronze little blue stem in a coat of moisture.

1100 Durham Meadows
Two vantage points: one beside a diminutive pond surrounded by tall cattails, their heads burst and seeds dispersed. The saturated growth intimidated any further advance but several hawks were tallied in the distance copse of trees.The second reconnoiter placed the observers in a muddy open expanse, part mown and grass-like, part roiled furrows of sedge and canary grass with a mottled hedge row surrounding the whole.

As the party picked their way over the soft, saturated earth the rain at last ceased to distract. The birds began to emerge in droves from underneath the sheaves of vegetation and began perching on branches of the silky dogwood, if just for a moment. The horse-neighing whistles of a tape-recorded screech owl had a transformational effect: the sparrows began ascending in agitation.
There was a white-crowned sparrow, its back turned to the observers but its bright head-dress stunningly visible. Purple finches alighted in the distant scrub. Casting eyes in a panoramic 360 degree arc, the accipiter species were noted as sharp shins; a northern harrier teetered over the fields in hunting mode; an uncommonly-seen kestrel alighted on a red maple.

There was a speck at the at the crown of another maple: it rose suddenly and became almost indiscernible. But follow it, follow! Don’t lose concentration! The speck turned back in the sky; it dove into the low grassy expanse. And it flashed the yellow breast of a meadowlark, once so numerous, now a gem to behold.

At long last, Spring, and the risen sun eyed the earth with paternal good cheer. The canoe had to be hoisted over dead, wind-blown trees clustered at water’s edge. A push through the chocolate ooze of lowering tide, and the two “musselers” paddled upstream in less than a foot of water. Tall trees along the shore shaded the surface; the water appeared opaque, difficult to espy any bivalves along the bottom. It was decided to cross over to Haddam Island.

Drifting close to the lip of the island, peering down into the murky between-tide depths… shell fragments began to appear. It was if the mussels, if they had been on land, were chewed up by a lawn mower. Otters often feed on mussels; were they the raiders of the watery realm?

Around the channel-side of the island an expanse of sand and mud flat was exposed as the tide continued to fall. Pulling over, the canoeists inquisitively waded in the shallows and traversed the grey, moist flats. More broken shells but no live denizens. Mussels prefer a certain type of substrate. Too much muck is not conducive to their lifestyle, as they must plod along on their thick, rubbery feet. A bit of coarse sand is best.

Rounding the island, they headed back towards the shallows, with the sun climbing and the temperature rising. Gazing down into clear water, inches deep, it was decided to hitch up to a large tree snag and begin sloshing about in a serendipitous search for mussels.

The falling tide flowed rapidly over a grainy, pebbled substrate that was perfect habitat. Several live species were quickly discovered channeling through the sand like antediluvian submarines extracting their food source through strainers in their intake valves.

The “musselers” plodded against the current unsteadily, avoiding the deeper holes in the river bed. The mussels’ zig-zag burrowings were etched like wrinkles on an old patriarch’s face. A silent world within a world, as grains of sand and bits of leaf litter passed over the mussel’s algae-painted and pebble-scuffed shells.

The canoeists continued to pick up and identify animals by nacre, beak, and hinge. The sun began to wrinkle its sweating brow and furrowed clouds dimmed its eye. The water slackened, the river held its breath, then exhaled briefly before an inexorable sucking back of the tide. A thump sounding from the southeast intimated a storm, chasing the canoe to the safety of shore.
Sitting in the shade of a huge silver maple the “musselers” tallied the day’s discovery of these keystone species so vital to river ecology:

Elliptio, Eastern Pond Mussel, Tidewater Mucket, Eastern Lampmussel, Eastern Floater, Alewife Floater, Triangle Floater—2 participants

The national dialogue being thus – vituperative and discursive – from the executive branch of government downwards, it should be no surprise that the lowest common denominator would also inevitably infect the world of ornithology. The following is an exerpt from a press conference held after a bird watching field trip.

Field trip leader (glumly): Afternoon. Notice I didn’t say good. Nothing’s good anymore.

Leader: All right, if you’re going to be so nosy. We went up the side of the railroad tracks and back through the woods along the river. O.K.?

Leader: No you may not. You’re face looks like it was punched in by a woodpecker. Next!

Third questioner: Well, what was the habitat like and were there many warblers scattered about?

Leader: Boy, you’re a loser. Never been outside? Rocks and sticks and trees and stuff. And the warblers, were they hiding? Colluding to confuse everyone? If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead and write it down. Don’t ever expect to be called upon again. Next!

Fourth questioner: It was supposed to be a warbler walk. Did you see any neotropicals?

Leader: No, we saw golf balls flying. What did you think we saw? And what’s the matter with you? You look like a pretzel.

Leader: You again? No you may not! Look, you people are wasting my time. Let me spell it out. We walked around a bit. We pish-pished. A couple of birds showed their feathery little faces, the rest squeaked from their hiding places and made our lives miserable. Somebody talked about their breakfast. There was no intentional obstruction of science. Everyone was happy it wasn’t raining. O.K.? End of press conference. Now you can all go back to your rag publications and lie about all I’ve said. Fini.

6 conspirators, 8 fake warbler species, 42 species total, subpoenaed but holding out for pardons.

These rocks, these stones this ragged, bony earth. A popular pathway for dog handlers and eager, hearty denizens with rappeling apparel slung over their backs. On they tread, some looking down at hand held devices, others determined, conversing in tense anticipation; most others just daydreaming of an assignation later in the day.

The two naturalists, however, seemed welcomed by the earth and the pine copse with knobby knees and feet protruding the uneven path beside the grey and chilly waters of the reservoir. Like some abandoned animal in a shelter cage the landscape rose up to greet them with an ingenuous wag of the tail and eyes transformed from enervated blankness into eager, gratefully bright stars.

The lingering chill of winter, reluctant to abdicate its crown to spring royalty, had spitefully rubbed its suppressive hand over the understory. Yellow dog-toothed violets stood in uncrowned monocultures, their spotted basal leaves self evident but their flowers unwilling to blossom. Winter snowdrifts had decapitated the branches of the tall white pines and smothered the forest floor with them. Trillium bravely emerged from beneath the litter but were not willing to show their purple nodding heads even in the third week of April.

Arriving beside the foot of the talus rubble tumbling down from the basalt heights the botanists spied Dutchman’s breeches. Some of these feathery plants were showing their pantaloons, much like shy virgins putting their underclothes out on the line.

Further exploration revealed Rue-anemone, unwilling to let the dawdling winter season spoil their debut. A few Bloodroot presented themselves, coyly exposing their white flowers between fans of green petals.

Crunching over loose rubble by the water’s edge searching for Spring beauty, Hepatica or Ginger. Hepatica alone did not disappoint: Pink and white flowers abundantly flourished.

The cliff scalers picked their way along the boulders high above the path, excitedly calculating foot holds, hand holds. A mother with two boys chattered past. The earth vocalized: how many springs do you have left in your tenure?

Loose stones like agates made the feet slide backwards. Poking between the rock ledges, more Hepatica, Early saxifrage not yet in bloom (how late you are in spite of your nomenclature). Then a glorious field of Pennsylvania sedge at the top of a rise dappled with more Hepatica and Rue-anemone. The lachrymose basalt path extruded tears to demonstrate its important water-bearing characteristic.

Now rise, rise to the peak of Lamentation Mountain. A swath of greenery began to fill in the gaps between highways and suburbs below. Few flowering plants were discerned though, and the naturalists descended, promising subsequent visitations to an ephemeral paradise.

After a still evening draped across the sky like a blue-black velvet cape studded with sequins, the grey light of morning had no intention of acknowledging the tentative change of season. Like a rapier, a cold wind thrust its honed edge into the faces of the two who “went a-ducking”.
They approached the pond off of the industrial parkway gliding over frosted clumps of fescue. Grey slush formed over the surface of the water. Yet there was enough openness to allow for the several Black ducks, Hooded mergansers and a Bufflehead couple to peruse the coagulated vegetation, or submerge after scaled tidbits. Mute swans placidly extended elegant necks beneath frothing waters. The wind gouged the “ducker’s” eyes, streaming with tears as they strained through scope and binoculars.

Rafts of geese gabbled and argued along the shore. Between them, studded throughout the surface of the pond, white Ring bill gulls floated patiently. A pair of claustrophobic Mallards tripped away from the gaggle of geese. Like a large grey head studded with spikes of hair an island in the pond was decorated with a Great blue heron rookery, a Bald eagle nest lurking among them.
And the northern wind continued to probe the forehead with its icy needles.

Serendipity led the “duckers” to Broad Brook Reservoir in Cheshire. Muffled against the persistent wind raking over open water, toting a scope on a tripod like a combat infantryman, hugging close to highway guard rails, stepping over winter-ravaged pine tree limbs and the detritus of civilization, the quest for waterfowl sightings continued.

The roadway split the reservoir. On one side, Bufflehead dove and reappeared like white and black semaphores. On the other side, a seemingly open expanse of tossing waves.

Then, perhaps noticing the equipment, a passing truck with an intuitive driver stopped and asked: “Birding?”

“On the other side of the reservoir,” the burly driver rejoined, ”rafts of Scaup, Mergansers, Ring necks and “Woodies”.

“By the way, there’s an eagle on the nest just a bit from here. This is my hunting grounds. Here’s how to find it…”

Hail fellow, well met. The nest with its eagle was just where it was pointed out to be. Then, bringing the automobile ’round to a different vantage point, the “duckers” found the several species of ducks bobbing stoically on the chilled surface of the reservoir.

The sun shined unadorned with clouds but the wind owned the day and spring seemed like a distant hope.

Since the first of the year, the Old Patriarch walked among us, and with his silver scepter flashing, turned the land into a frozen form of his likeness. He tossed his robes aside as he tread, turning ponds and rivers into sheets of steel capable of withstanding the weight of automobiles. Few ventured out into the wind without trepidation. That wind was the Patriarch’s breath spewed out onto the cowling earth. But He has unexplained whims, and with icy compressed lips He returned to his frosted throne, sat down and slept, leaving the stage to milder actors.

Four participants made their way along a brown, snowless gravel path on a still and thaw-enhanced morning. Bluebirds danced on the wizened apple trees. Juncos and White-throated sparrows scratched the ground underneath multiflora rose. In the distance a Common raven’s distinctive clicking voice reverberated.

After an uphill trek, past fields of bluestem, a park-like oak and hickory forest arose, and then the summit over-looking Salmon river cove. There was a sheen of sparse ice slush gathered in the shadowy curves of the river, but most of the cove was free of a stainless steel burden.
Mute swans, like bright white apostrophes, tossed on the surface of the cove. The sun off tiny wavelets. A thin blue-black peninsula in the distance separated the cove from the Connecticut river.

A moment of scrutiny. Then in a hemlock jutting up from a point along the shore: a mature Bald eagle. Its back was turned towards the observers but the white crown of its head was visible and mobile. One could imagine the sharp, intense eyes, those self-assured, inscrutable orbs.
A Golden-crowned kinglet appeared, intent on vying with the eagle for our interest, so near in the threads of a cedar that binoculars were unnecessary.

Another eagle broke away from its earthen perch, an immature that majestically fluttered over the water like a huge brown butterfly. Then the “white head” decided to exercise its wings. The cove suddenly seemed bereft of its regality when the two eagles departed.

Later, along Cove Road at eye level to the confluence of the Moodus and Salmon rivers, a gathering of Black and Mallard ducks was noted as well as the bickering Canada geese waddling in the chocolate muck of low tide.

43rd Annual Salmon River Christmas Bird Count,
December 17, 2017
Golden-Crowned Kinglet

The 43rd annual Mattabeseck Salmon River Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 17th, 2017. A total of 31 participants braved the cold temperatures (temperature range of 12-33 degrees F) to identify and count birds. The ground had a light covering of snow and many of the ponds and lakes were frozen, which reduced the number of waterfowl observed on the lakes and ponds. As of the print date of this edition of Wingbeat, the tentative total number of bird species observed was 68. This number could increase as feeder counts are received. The highlight of this year’s count was a first ever Orange-Crowned Warbler, observed at Haddam Meadow State Park. Please consider joining one of the teams next year. We are confident that any newcomers will be welcomed with open arms. All levels of birding expertise are welcome. Please contact, Sharon Dellinger, rsdell@comcast.net or Doreen Jezek, dajezek@gmail.com for more information. You’ve got a year to get ready!

The Old Bean Field
An early autumn morning…casting aside its mottled green and yellow blazer, the season stood bare-chested as the balmy sun rose lethargically over the ragged field of goldenrod. Juxtaposed to the field the manicured soccer grid opposite was animated with a dozen Killdeer. Soon the matches would dispel them all.

A Blue-headed vireo grappled with the branches of a black locust. Over mounds of mugwort-encrusted gravel Song sparrows and a Field sparrow shyly dodged away from the interlopers, but not before they were counted and registered in the ledger. Insinuating oneself amongst the clumps of Russian olive, bunchgrass and goldenrod caused avians to propel themselves in all directions. As if to scold, a Palm warbler stroked its tail, the underside dashed with gold.

Standing abreast of the silky dogwoods, beckoning with pursed lips produced nothing as the morning sun reflected hazily over the pale yellow sky. Further reconnaissance in the dense grass spiked with multiflora rose caused only sparse response. The lingering warmth of summer loosened the shirt collars.

The Nature Garden
Footsteps crunched on the gray crushed stone pathways that wound a serpentine course around the Nature Garden…red maple wetlands opposite fields of dogwood and eastern red cedar abbreviated by white oak, the stalwart sentinels of ancient pastureland. Here, too, it seems the leaden atmosphere slowed the pace of migration. A lingering female Scarlet tanager tumbled after berries. Flickering maddeningly, a Ruby-crowned kinglet animated a cedar’s bristling branches. The dependable White-throated sparrow made its appearance known with a chirp.

The pathway forked. Rising up like the dominion of demons, a bristling ball of mile-a-minute vine; allowed to advance, this tormented alien would alter the landscape irrevocably.

Guida’s Farm Nature Sanctuary.
The sky overhead, painfully bright in late morning, was dappled with the ethereal flight of Red tail and Red-shouldered hawks whose pirouettes were transected by the parabolas of coal-black Turkey vultures. The mown carpets of grass punctuated by hedgerows held their secrets to their breasts, however, revealing nothing but reflected Indian summer.

Lastly, a field by the TPA golf course.
A field lies surrounded by green tuxedoes like a shabby beggar outside an opulent opera house. But like the beggar who turns out to be an impresario this field had more integrity than the adjacent golf course. In the hollows carved out of the gently sloping plain, an active flock of Savannah sparrows tripped

On Sunday, September 24th, several members of MAS and their families attended a field trip to A Place Called Hope (APCH), a raptor rehabilitation facility in Killingworth. It was an unusually warm day with bright sun and temperatures in the high eighties.

Christine Cummings, President and Co-Founder, escorted us through the aviaries providing us with up close views of their resident Bald Eagle, Vultures, Owls, Hawks, Crows, and Falcons (not to mention various waterfowl and Mourning Doves). We were able to hear the unique, and sometimes heartbreaking, stories that brought each bird into their care. Although the main goals of APCH are to rehabilitate and release, many of the birds that we saw had sustained injuries that have made release impossible. It was bittersweet to meet Loki, APCH’s resident, not so Common, Raven, who is non-releasable due to human imprinting. We all enjoyed seeing her flirt with Todd Secki, Secretary/Treasurer/Co-Founder, and husband of Christine.

The vast majority of the residents live there due to human interference, both intentional (gunshot wounds), and unintentional (motor vehicle strikes, fishing line, balloons). We all learned a great deal from Christine, who shared her vast knowledge, without reservation. It was clear, early into our visit, that Connecticut is lucky to claim APCH as one of our treasures. I encourage anyone reading this to learn more about this amazing place online at: aplacecalledhoperaptors.com

Imagine a dream, a dream more vital than the reality of wakefulness, wherein the sun spears the trembling waters of the estuary with lances of eye-piercing light and the vessel carrying you adrift pushes forward with ethereal anticipation.

The shouts of fisher-folk along the walkway and the clatter of passing rail cars over the spiderweb architecture of the tarnished silver bridge cannot waken you from your somnambulant reverie.

The tide licks the chocolate banks of the marshes. The vessel rises and falls with the singing waves. You become the wave; you form the crests; your eyelids flutter; expressions of energy rise along your spine.

The granite schist and gneiss outcrops appear and recede like the heads of whales. The sloshing waters laugh at your passing. Then, as if put there by some invisible fingers playing at marionettes you land on a windward lip of sand. The sand becomes animated as only granules can do in a dream: Least sandpipers dance by the restless waters edge in a pas de deux with Semipalmated and Black bellied plovers. An orange Monarch butterfly flutters about the unopened salt marsh goldenrod, while a Least tern, itself an imagined form of white-winged lepidopteran, replicates the patterned flight over the open waters of the estuary.

Imprints in the sand. Looking back you see your heel marks; looking forward, imagining those yet to be made. And the tide swirls lower, exposing the canvas. And the tide swirls higher, flushing the canvas clean.

A Spotted sandpiper see-sawing beside the jetsam: you become the bird with stern and perceptive eye. The bird becomes you and opens its beak inquisitively. But then you both fly away. What’s left are human heel prints. You gaze around unrequited.

Rounding Great Island, and the shifting, shining surface of the sea. The green water pulses purposefully beneath the vessel. The barrier island is exposed like a beige eyebrow above a green eye with curled green lashes. Mud flats are revealed; gnarled roots of phragmites; black submerged marsh peat gradually uncovered glistens in the sun flaring its nostrils, gratefully inhaling the pellucid atmosphere.

The gulls gather. The Osprey clings pridefully to its nest. The wind exhales forcefully over the waves running its fingers over the barrier beach. Looking landward, a string of clouds that look like heads of cauliflower punctuates the horizon.

Then navigating the sinuous tidal creeks; they writhe around you like watersnakes. They tease you with shallows and mudflats. The vessel stalls, pushes forward, stalls.

The Willets burst away loudly, shouting staccato, plaintive gospels to the air. The Great egrets stand mutely like stalks of marsh elder, while the Snowy egrets step about with golden toes after their frenetic prey.

Your sonorous breathing becomes more shallow and rapid. You toss, and tossing brings you forth from the deep like a fish being pulled upward by an unseen hand. The dream fades into reality and you must suffice with fractured memories.

0830: Mouth of the Salmon River; tide peaking. The canoe tracks easily over the flat, dark water. The low flood plain sprouts tussock sedge and yellow flag, a prolific garden escape. The green ash are perforated with the nest holes of tree swallows. Raspberry brambles are in full bloom.

0900: Paddling rapidly up river. Water chestnut, an insidious aquatic invasive is discovered. Its location is documented, with a follow-up trip planned to remove it.
Golden club, a species of conservation concern, their namesake flowering “cudgels” exposed by the diminishing tidal surge, gently wave next to clusters of sweet flag. When broken the succulent sword-like blades of the sweet flag emit an intense, soothing lemon scent.

0945: At the confluence of the Moodus river with the Salmon. Slowly moving upstream. The clear gravel bottom of the Moodus exposes mussel shells in dark bas-relief. Eliptios are most abundant; a Tidewater mucket is found, then a Pond mussel, with its pointed, narrow beak is collected.
The sinuous banks of the Moodus are bursting with splendid verdure, tussock sedge and spotted alder. Submerged in the crevasse of a muddy log is a musk turtle, its domed shell green with algae.

1030: Return to the opaque waters of the Salmon. Moving steadily upstream to Leesville dam. The June day becomes like a restless, sleeping dog with troubled dreams, its eyes fluttering open and closed, eyebrows twitching. A sheen of steel grey clouds; a chilling wind and sporadic, leaden rain drops. The canoeists drape their ponchos close about them.

1145: Put some muscle into it! A brief, strenuous passage through rock-strewn rapids lands the canoe at a sand bank down stream of the roaring dam. Scaled passengers queued up in the orange-tinged pool next to the fish ladder. Great blue herons perch on rocks, a towering oak, and on a concrete ice breaking platform. Osprey wheel and dive for prey. The clouds have been scissored; their shredded bodies reveal the azure blue firmament and the golden king on his throne. The grass beside the dam and the leaves of the trees all sparkle with a welcoming emerald green light.

1600: And return. Passing beneath a kingbird nest just as the parents exchanged positions on their rustic, woven labyrinth.
The wind in late afternoon blows upstream from the Connecticut river like exhalations from the throat of some water god. Our own respirations completed the eternal cycle.

Two participants; 5 mussel species; 26 bird species; plants of note: golden club, sweet flag, blue flag

Gathered together beneath the spreading leaves and flowering oak and hickory trees, four participants of the warbler walk remarked on the “dark and stormy night” preceding. Nevertheless, beneath murky skies, the walk commenced down the broad and endless rail line.

Moving slowly, scanning the canopy, listening for the voices of spring, the group quickly discerned several resident avians such as the Chickadees and Titmice, as well as Red-bellied and Downy woodpeckers. But it was the neotropical specimens that all wanted to find.

Soon enough a Northern oriole’s familiar undulating song came from the edge of a red oak. Neotropicals judge when it is best to begin flooding a topography in spring just when the leaves emerge and flowers of trees begin to bloom. That is when the caterpillars proliferate, making easy pickings for birds replenishing the energy spent in migration.

But what is science compared to the siren voice of the Wood thrush? Upon first hearing those mellifluous trills after a winter scoured by silence would it be possible not to go mad with the ineluctable sense of that bird’s song?
The group passed a golf course whose obsessive obeisance to orderliness made Nature simply sigh with skepticism. Yet even there Tree swallows swooned and Chipping sparrows vocalized their namesake staccato rhythms.

Below the rail line lay the Connecticut river floodplain. The floodplain is so important to migrating and resident birds. Yet human society arrogantly considers this habitat as nothing more than a dumping ground. A reconnoiter here produced a masked denizen: a common yellowthroat.

Retracing their steps the group walked the pitching pathways of Highland Park above the Connecticut river. Worm-eating warblers enjoy these steep slopes and at least six individuals were counted. The incomparable voice of the Rose-breasted grosbeak made everyone pause. Robins, take note!

The early morning clouds began to dissipate and the sky at last glowed with sunshine. At trip’s end a quick compilation was made: four warbler species; thirty-one species total.

An afternoon foray was decided upon by one unrequited. At the Cromwell Meadows four more warbler species were compiled as well as several additional neotropical birds; eighteen neo’s were tallied for the day.

Of these fleeting bits of life one might well say: “They are such stuff as dreams are made…”

It is the unpredictability of the season that lures one into the field in Spring. Regenerating verdure wafts an aroma that awakens the senses, giving one a feeling of hopefulness and serenity.

It was just that unpredictability that met four participants of the wildflower exploration: a chill overcast morning with showers threatening. Yet the hopefulness wasn’t diminished.

As we walked along the root-studded path beneath the white pines, scanning the understory, Pine warblers competed for our attention. They flashed high up in the canopy, and their trills always gave a sense of continuity, a confirmation that all is well in Nature, if not so in the human world.

We passed by monocultures of Dog-toothed violet, most of which had already bloomed. Only the nodding, flaccid remnants of yellow blossoms remained.

Wild oats with swollen buds stood between Asters that awaited patiently for the spring and summer to pass before they came out on stage.

Walking beneath the pine canopy we anticipated and found stands of trillium busy competing with each other to see who had the loveliest flower. Many were in bud: “Just you wait another week; with a warming sun I’ll out-do my companions”, they seemed to sigh. False solomon seal nearby reticently folded over at the waist, their flowering a month or so into the future: “All in due time, don’t rush us.”

Rue-anemone, Dutchman’s breeches, Blood-root and ramps (wild leeks), gathered around trees and protruded amongst the rocks of the talus slope. Only the basal leaves of the Hepatica remained evident, having blossomed earlier in the spring. Unpredictability!

A path beside the trap rock reservoir was punctuated with Spring beauty. Blue cohosh stood out darkly, its color obvious as to the origin of its moniker. Plentiful Ginger with their secretive and exquisite bell-shaped purple flowers were discovered all along a rising trail.

Climbing now, upwards towards Lamentation Mountain, sporadic moisture threatened but never reached a crescendo. Early saxifrage grew between the rocks, and plentiful Rue-anemone spread amongst the understory below hickory and oak trees.

Upon reaching the summit the Holy Grail of rarity was observed: the Yellow corydalis. So subtle, so easily overlooked! With satisfaction we proceeded to search for Pale corydalis but it was in bud stage. A subsequent trip would reward one with a view of this plant’s red and yellow tubular display.

We descended Lamentation Mountain. In this, the most un-Romantic of ages, “We were there when the flowers bloomed!”

Birders scan Salmon River cove for ducks and eagles
Bottom: 2 immature Bald eagles on the ice

Like a wolf with frosty fangs, late winter bit into the surprised landscape. With a hardy, cold growl it chided the February Spring peepers and quacking Wood frogs for their impertinence.

Inland ponds were coated with chain mail. Open pools of water during the day became mostly silent sheets of stainless steel by morning. Nevertheless, thin ribbons of liquid did exist and gave surcease to a group of Ringneck ducks, Canada geese and Mute swans on Black Pond in Meriden.

A river speckled with ice floes: that was the dark Connecticut off of Haddam meadows. While a mature Bald eagle glided imperiously overhead, ducks and geese blithely paddled about. Wood ducks, Common and Hooded mergansers, the usual Mallards, all enjoyed a day with glazed skies and frosted shoreline. In a nearby marsh a Swamp sparrow dug at a small hole in the ice. Buona fortuna, my chilled friend!

Salmon River cove—a silver saucer with a thin ribbon of ink flowing into it—the tributary Moodus River. There Black ducks, Mergansers, Green teal, Mallards, and Wood ducks all made do and were “pleased with what they got” on the mudflats at low tide. A Bald eagle on the wing; one in the foreground in the mud; two dancing about a fish in the flats a distance off; then skimming over the water, a fifth.

Three delighted participants. 29 species of birds, 7 duck species, 6 Bald eagles.

Imminent snow kept birders away (2 participants), and abbreviated our trip, as snow soon reduced visibility so much that we could not see across the Connecticut River. Before the snow began, Machimoodus produced 18 species, including a Yellow-bellied sapsucker, Black-poll warbler, and Raven. However, no eagles were found.

The Salmon River Christmas Bird Count tally has not yet been officially compiled.

On and off rain, heavy fog, a skin of ice on some ponds, and warm temps depressed numbers.

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring...
I sha’n’t be gone long...you come too.

–Robert Frost

Early autumn painted the sky deep azure with white wisps of fog ascending. The trees blushed faintly like a child’s flushed cheeks. But when both children and six “birders” met at the old bean field there was a dichotomy: the children at their soccer, kicking balls, unaware of the avian life interwoven amongst the mugwort and goldenrod just down slope from their play.

The sparrows clung to the forbs like the glistening drops of dew, bobbing asunder like marionettes: song, savannah, white throat and swamp, purposefully chirping, flashing highlights that were their sentient eyes, and fluttering their wings.

The group moved counterclockwise around a voluminous unkempt mound of gravel bearded with annual weeds, flushing individuals: palm warblers throbbed their golden tails and mockingbirds loudly vocalized: click-click-click.
Marching through waist high goldenrod and thickets of multiflora rose and Russian olive, the hidden birds bobbed and weaved. The ledger began to fill: yellow rump warblers, ruby-crowned kinglet, phoebe. Don’t forget to look towards the firmament—a sharp shin hawk.

Sweeping through a wet depression, then over a sparsely-vegetated gravel bed, killdeer were observed. From a copse of colored maples: the chip-chip of a red-bellied woodpecker.

The morning yawned broadly exposing the shining teeth of the sun. Just around the curve from the bean field is the Nature Garden. The topography was lush and verdant in its autumn coat of arms. But it was also meditative in its quietude. A path followed into an open landscape with dried, blond grasses and red little bluestem to either side. A wide panorama of autumnal sky above. Quietude.

Nevertheless the Nature Garden always delivers surprises. This day had its own charm. A wooded copse: the birders stood and whispered to the wind, and suddenly a burst of activity erupted. Among a group of yellow rumps were several blackpoll warblers and a northern parula. Just beyond the sage and ancient oak, down in the underbrush, a tuxedoed black-throated blue warbler revealed itself.

Lastly, there was a trip to Guida’s hay fields and hedgerows. Sparrows were absent from the thickets, but in the distance common ravens distinctively clucked. The verdure took center stage here: the catkin-abbreviated black birch; the highbush cranberry hung with drooping clusters of red fruit; the fields of harvested grass; the land itself, the feel of it beneath one’s feet. Under an open panorama turkey vultures teetered, grasped a windshear and dove in parabolas.

When the group looked to the hills distant they could see the cusp of autumn, of promised obsolescence. And when they gathered roadside the fallen yellow leaves of a black birch under foot informed them that they, too, were participants in the universal cycle of life.

Little Narragansett Bay: a veneer of summer sunlight shimmering on a shifting surface of green sea. The low profile of the camouflaged canoe split the restless waves and rounded the Spartina-bristling shelves of tidal marsh. Great egrets squawked and tumbled impatiently with one another while awaiting the change of tidal flow. Cormorants on gnarled rock outcrops spread their wings to dry and Barn swallows traced parabolas above their heads.

A narrow mosquito ditch: the canoe’s bow sliced forward. Gazing downward one could see that the black paste on the floor of the ditch was embedded with the pale white skeletons of generations of gastropods and bivalves.
The ditch merged with a tidal creek, Great egrets standing at attention along either side. The tide was still coming in carrying ragged bits of brown algae and a small purple Lion’s mane, the jelly fish completely passive and abandoned to the will of the inevitable.

Where the Marsh elder crowded the edge of the creek, Song sparrows and a Marsh wren played hide and seek. Several Green-backed herons clucked at the intrusion and Spotted sandpipers, tails dipping frenetically, took wing as the canoe pushed forward, crowded by narrowly constricting banks. Shadows played over the flat, green plain: Ospreys wheeling down from ethereal heights.

Of a sudden, slack tide and, all in due time, not to be rushed, a reversal, and the beginning outflow of green-blue water to the sea. The canoe turned also and floated past Black gum tupelo trees with a hint of scarlet blush and a lavendar-pink Seaside gerardia flowering through the light emerald green strands of Spartina.

Out into the open bay around an island rising from the bedrock, the agitated water lifted and tossed the canoe forward and aft, port to starboard. A harrowing passage; vehement thrusts of waves; and a hurried landfall onto a barrier beach.

There the rack line thick with layers of jetsam became enlivened with the subtle movements of birds: Least sandpipers, Greater and Lesser yellowlegs, Semi-palmated and Black-bellied plovers. A pair of Oystercatchers, like tuxedo-dressed maestros in an orchestra pit tapping their podiums before a concert, calmly preened their feathers with distinctive orange bills.

The sun was fanned by a kaleidoscope of dun-colored clouds. The green sea erupted from the swash zone and foamed at the feet of the Black-back and Herring gulls restlessly gathered. And a wandering, solitary gull with a useless, drooping wing aimlessly traversed the arid, Jimsonweed studded spine of the barrier beach.
“Every day is alone itself.”
—Lobotomy patient Henry Molaison
After a succession of damp tomorrows the migration will fly ahead leaving behind in silence the grains of sand, the bones and feathers of birds…

Mattabeseck’s trip to Plum Island began with a warm sunny day and ferry ride across Long Island Sound. As we arrived at the Orient Point Light, numerous cormorants and terns greeted us. On our walk from the harbor to the main administration building, we visited the grave marker for Col. Thomas Gardiner who is the only permanent resident of Plum Island. Our guide Jason Golden introduced us to the history of Plum Island first as a military installation used to protect the American coast for many years.

On the bus tour around the island, we visited some of the artillery installations from that period. When the Army left after World War II, the US Department of Agriculture moved into the old Army buildings and used the island for the study of agricultural diseases, particularly hoof and mouth disease. After lunch, we took a bus trip around the island where we saw osprey and egrets in the largest freshwater wetland in New York state. We also visited the spot where seals have a large haul out especially in the winter. There were three sunning themselves on rocks while about a dozen others swam around watching us. We also visited a beautiful beach where bank swallows nest, but they had already left. At the very end of the ever narrowing island, we could see the Gull Islands that are the nesting places for terns. A pair of eiders swam between the rocks in the swirling water that protects the island in many places from any boat landings. We missed the monarch butterflies that had been nectaring on a large patch of milkweed, but several seed pods were covered with the very interesting red beetles that feed on the plant. Altogether, a day filled with nature and history.

Canoe Trip—Special Focus Areas of the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge:
June 4, 2016

After a kindly well-wisher sent the two canoeists on their way, they headed up the Connecticut river against a lowering tide. The canoe tracked well, cutting through the green water plants, Elodea and Raccoon tail, lying submerged in the shallows near the bank.

Out in the open channel, the canoe gently rocked in the swells thrown up by the passing motor craft. The paddlers were plying towards the tidal inlet between Dead Man’s Swamp and a flood plain peninsula, part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. The peninsula is closed to the public to protect the Puritan tiger beetle, found only in the Connecticut river valley.

Water chestnut roots break easily. If pulling, use
many slow, very light tugs to liquefy mud around roots. The seed’s barbs can pierce skin.

Lesser yellowlegs and Great blue herons stalked the tidal inlet. Warbling vireos sing-songed in the tall maple canopies. Observant, the canoeists spied a flaccid patch of invasive water chestnut looking like a large, deflated, lime-green balloon exposed in the mud. Unable to reach it because of the deep, gooey substrate, the canoeists had to linger until the tide reversed itself and began to refill the inlet. Then the floating mass was accessible. The pernicious invasive filled several buckets, disposed of well above the reach of the flood plain.

Around the curve of the peninsula, in the middle of the river, lay Gildersleeve Island, another special focus area of the Refuge. There was an active Bald eagle nest, with at least one chick in it, clinging to a Green ash tree disguised by thick foliage.

The canoeists glided up river to visit another special focus area, the Wangunk Meadows. They made landing on the Mattabeseck Audubon preserve, an unmarked, uncharted, untamed piece of the high flood plain. Below the high bank river morphology could be plainly seen in the form of a large elongated swale, bristling with both herbaceous growth and small trees. In the not too distant past, this swale was a tidal mud flat. The river channel, in its migration, had left the mud flat behind, and a swale developed. It was incorporated into part of the low flood plain. But don’t get too comfortable! It is the river’s duty to return one day and recapture what it had spawned.

The canoe turned down river and made one final special focus visit. Disembarking on Wilcox Island, where there was another Bald eagle nest, the canoeists set out through waist high Ostrich fern and insidious Poison ivy to discover the tall, lush Green dragon plant. These flood plain denizens have intriguing yellow tongues all a-glow like golden torches. These tongues are the flowering parts of the plant. Finding the Green dragons would complete a satisfying exploration of biodiversity all within a two mile stretch of the Connecticut river.

2 participants; 26 species of birds; 3 mussel species; numerous herbaceous, understory, and canopy species.

Scene: Court room. Wall to wall carpets. Long bench seats facing the judge’s podium. Clerk’s desk to left of the judge. Prosecutor stands next to the clerk’s desk.

Knock, knock! The judge taps the door leading from his chambers and enters the court room.

Judge: You are accused of leading a bird watching field trip. Warblers. Correct?

Defendant: No, sir, the week leading up to the trip was miserably cold and dreary.

Defendant: I’m a little bit deaf in the ear, your Honor, so they might have been hiding from me…

Judge, pontificating: Five, that’s all? Why, when these birds fly thousands of miles across hostile oceans, shopping malls and such, and then, exhausted, drop down onto the countryside, don’t you think they deserve a better welcome, a little recognition? Well?

Judge: More excuses! No, I see by your list of bird watchers that you had some excellent people with you. So now for your sentencing.

Judge, slamming his gavel onto the podium: You are sentenced to a week-end camping with cub scouts and making bird feeders out of cardboard toilet roll tubes coated with peanut butter and sunflower seeds.

A gasp rises up from the crowd of mug-a-bugs. Chagrined, the defendant is led away by the bailiff, past a large, burly prisoner with a shaved head, a nose crooked from fighting, huge biceps covered in “Love you Mom” tattoos, and shackled head to foot in chains like sausages as thick as a man’s waist. The prisoner sighs with sympathy as the defendant is led away and rolls his blood shot eyes at the severity of the sentence, thanking the stars for his own punishment – only 40 years in solitary confinement, on bread crumbs and water.

First of all, there is the science of the thing: a recitation of facts, genus and species noted, weather conditions, barometric pressure and other meteorological elements. These are the necessary infrastructures, the bedrock of all that follows.

But let us go down a different, metaphysical path on our quest for the vernal experience. For how many vernal mornings do we have left in our temporal selves?

Four Botanists gathered together silently contemplated that question before descending into the basalt “rabbit hole,” a la Alice in Wonderland, that was Giuffrida Park.

The convoluted roots of the great tall pines and the quick lapping of the waves on the reservoir spoke as clearly as the botanist’s conversation, if one was alert and willing to listen. Above, the animated Pine warblers tisk-tisk-tisked, and like falconers the trees held out their boughs and beckoned them to perch.

The dog-tooth violets lapped the acid soil with spotted tongues; they rose up flowers in a parade of yellow parasols. The trillium thrust forward from three great green collars a crimson medallion. Treading over broken talus slopes, embraced as if by old acquaintances, the botanists knelt to the dutchman’s breeches and gently smoothed their lemon yellow pantaloons. Ramps, the wild leeks of the forest, stood about in verdant circles, rising above the brown dead oak leaves that looked like orphans.

A rising path, talus slopes studded with rue anemone; then a plunge along the edges of the reservoir. The ballet began there in earnest: whirling pirouettes of spring beauty; blue cohosh; ginger with their reticent bell flowers splayed out like tutus; pink, white, and purple hepatica on pointe. Prima donnas all vying for attention.

A pair of Louisiana waterthrushes danced among the flowers. A quick pas de deux as they exchanged positions on a log. Bravo!

Climbing now, but as if on wings of anticipation, past fields of white rue anemone, suddenly a kaleidoscope of orange movement, animated petals of a different sort: red efts, the terrestrial stage of the red-spotted newt starting along the way. Watch your footfalls!

Achieving the summit of Lamentation Mountain: pale white clouds with moistened eyes looked lovingly over the landscape below while black ravens dove and cut through them like barber shears.

Cresses and early saxifrage were cradled in the rocky crevasses along the path. Then the botanists became as elevated as the mountain: pale and yellow corydalis, growing side by side!

A rainbow and a cuckoo’s song
May never come together again;
May never come
This side the tomb.
W.H. Davies

4 participants; 23 flower and flowering tree-shrub species; 22 avian species

Duck species and duck numbers were uncharacteristically sparse at Meriden’s Research Parkway ponds, but we did get Mallard, Green wing teal, Black duck, Ring neck duck, and Bufflehead there. Tree swallows were already swooping over the ponds there too.

There were no coots at North Farms Reservoir this year. We were able to pick up a Common merganzer on the Connecticut River, and a Pintail near the parking area at Portland Fair Grounds. A trip to the end of the trail at Cromwell Meadows added Wood Ducks.

… Black-eyed Ulysses,
being an astute and eagle-hearted man,
A heavily loined, lumbering man with a bird’s eye
And a bird’s unrest…
Frederic Prokosch

Brown, snowless, desiccated earth; well-drained and droughty gravel, like tobacco stained teeth; withered bunch grasses gathered underneath the skeletal Black locust trees; fields of rigid, mummified stalks of goldenrod, like upright whips: that is what greeted the two observers as they climbed Mt Tom to catch a glimpse of …“the sharp, mean eyes of a bird…” Prokosch.

Winter slumbered; it breathed languorously, its half-hearted exhalations just managed to cast over Salmon river cove a glimmering, uneven shell of ice. Large sections of open water supported a white bedspread of Mute swans. The hills on either side of the cove rose up from the shoreline in grey, bristling, soldier-like formation.

From the peak of Mt. Tom, the ice-free Connecticut river could be seen, as black and sinuous as a rat snake. The oak trees stood silently, expectantly, all around the observers, occasionally groomed by a Downy or Red-headed woodpecker. Movement on the limbs of the understory trees; droplets of slate and orange color, undulating: Bluebirds.

Standing firm above the cove, searching, ever searching. What were those two avian statues standing on a flow of ice near the shore? Ah, the white heads and tails, the marked ebony profile of eagles. Their interest on the ice suddenly waning, first one then the other,

Like magical shadows dancing in the pellucid atmosphere, they took flight
And hovered, then wheeled effortlessly out of sight.

Although this year’s Sparrow Crawl failed to produce a White-crowned, we did get four sparrow species: Song, Savannah, Swamp, and White-throat. The day was clear and sunny, about 50–55°, with evidence of heavy mast. We started in Wesleyan’s “bean field” (now a soccer field, parking, and the last bit of abandoned agricultural field) for 21 species, including both Black and Turkey vultures.

Next we visited Middletown Nature Garden, where we found another 10 species, including Hermit thrush, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Pileated woodpecker, and Purple finch.

NOTE: for info and visual comparing Black vulture with Turkey vulture, see our Natural History page.

Two Owl Prowls were held in November. Why November? It is the furthest from the nesting season and is also not too cold. Owls can be very territorial and once they set up nests it is best not to disturb them.

So the first trip on the 7th took the western route, going first to Ravine Park in Middletown and then on to other stops heading towards Middlefield. There were 10 people tagging along. An owl showed up on the last stop. We were at the bridge over the Coginchaug River on Miller Road in Middlefield. We called for some time and were about to give up, when two Screech owls called back. One came right up to the road and was 10 to 12 feet away in a small tree about 8 feet off the ground.

The second trip had only two participants. We started at Ravine park, a favorite location. This night was much colder but we were not disappointed here as we had been the week before. As it often does, the resident screech owl came out. It flew across the road buzzing right past us, landed in a bush across the street, and continued to scream at us. We left—a short night after that surprise.

Although our 40th anniversary Salmon River CBC has not been officially compiled yet, data shows 73 total species. One new bird—never tallied in 40 years on this count—showed up in two different locations, and is increasing in overall numbers throughout Connecticut. The Black Vulture was seen by two groups: Larry Nichols, Mike Good et al., and Joe Morin, Deb Goodrich, et al. Other Count notables were Green Wing Teal and Gadwall, as well as a Tundra Swan that was seen on the day before the count and again two days after on the Connecticut River near Haddam Meadows State Park.

This was a very strange count with unseasonably warm weather for most of December. Also notable were a lack of some foods such as Juniper berries and autumn olive, and the tiny size of Rose hips. We hope to post updated tally on our website and on the Cornell/Audubon CBC site.

NOTE: for info and visual comparing Black vulture with Turkey vulture, see our Natural History page.

The tide fell imperceptibly, rippling past the concrete pilings of the bridge spanning the Lieutenant River; like blue-green oil it slid along the pock-marked banks of black mud where the Fiddler crabs hid in their burrows. The Spartina alterniflora, with the Phragmites looking down over its shoulders, watched impassively the timeless exchange of waters.

The canoeists prepared to embark. A fisherman, his pork pie hat askew, stepped towards the edge of the water beneath the bridge and cast out his weighted red and white styrofoam bobber. Several flicks of his wrist…no luck. Peremptorily he wheeled away in resignation. “Water too warm,” he muttered.

Indeed, it had been a warm and dry summer, the likes of which New England rarely sees. Paddling into the channel the canoeists noted the Great egret squinting into the water from its perch on an exposed lump of primeval bedrock arising from the near sea level elevation. A Turkey vulture swooped side to side over the approaching railroad bridge.

“That spread of marsh over on the right was reclaimed from the death grip of the Phragmites,” one of the paddlers commented. “But that was a few years ago, and now it’s fully choked in again.”
Around a long gentle curve, a lone immature Yellow-crowned night heron stood preening and contemplating: to have life given to it, fresh and wide open; to explore the ways of survival; the challenges of constant hunger; the freedom of living in the present.

The crabmen were just sidling into hunting position. The canoeists bade them good luck. Floating past the edges of Great Island, Great and Snowy egrets gathered together patiently awaiting the lowering tide. On a grey trunk of a wayward oak sat an immature Little blue heron, one of several spotted on the trip.

A channel into the center of Great Island beckoned. There, the brisk southwest wind was tempered and the sunlight glistened off the interior plateau of Spartina patens, saltmarsh cordgrass, short and firm. Song sparrows arose and dropped into the cover of Marsh elder. Least sandpipers fled before the bow of the canoe. Ospreys still clung familiarly to their nests and chirped in distress and disgust at the human intrusion.

Turning back to the main flow of the Blackhall river where it dispersed itself into the Sound, the canoeists encountered Willets careening across the mudflats that were gradually being uncovered by the falling tide. Then came a landing on Griswold Point.

Griswold Point hunches like an apostrophe at high tide, separated from the mainland by a stretch of shallow water. But when the tide falls there are hollows of mudflats and pebble-strewn substrate exposed, remnants of the Point that was divided and flattened by Nor’ Easters. Shorebirds flock on them as people congregate in their city parks.

Walking on the coarse bronze sand salted generously with the shells of various gastropods and other invertebrates, the canoeists spotted several Piping plovers among a group of Semipalmated and Blackbellied plovers. Lesser yellowlegs danced in the receding waters of the Sound. Sunlight caromed off the wavelets whose heads were brushed by a steady wind.

Common terns, adults and immature, hunched in the wind like white razor blades with black and yellow beaks. Opposite them eight or nine Oyster catchers stalked the shallow pools for bivalves like a convention of ushers in an opera house with red noses and dressed in black tuxedos.

Returning to the canoe, the observers met up with the Nature Conservancy. Their naturalist was “folding up the tent” on the shorebird nesting sites, taking down the cautionary string fence. As she pulled stakes the naturalist described the season: after drowning spring tides the Piping plovers recovered and had a decent showing. But the Least terns had a poor, disastrous season throughout the Connecticut coast line.

Digesting this information, the canoeists made for their return. The wind was at their back, the tide had slacked and the return flow was in their favor. But subconsciously the plight of the Least terns, and indeed, the plight of great swathes of humankind troubled the mind. The thought arose: how like the empty shells along the sand are we?

A grey sunrise. Sky the color of sweating copper pipes. The drizzle gradually subsided leaving a pleasant atmosphere, heavy and silent.

The camouflaged canoe with its brown, shiny teak-stained gunnels slid comfortably into the water and converged with the lowering tide. Across the river, the ferry squatted with its motors idling, mechanical nostrils flared, preparing itself for the burdens upon its back and the effort demanded of its sinews.

The canoe glided past a Coast Guard channel marker buried under the nesting material of an Osprey, who chirped loudly as this foreign object skated by. The restless river heaved against the pebbled shore. Green ash formed a lime-colored phalanx above the high water mark.

The entrance to Selden Creek creates a calming influence on the tossing waters of the open river. Tussock sedge and cattail rise up from the shallow edges of the creek. A mud flat came into view. Sword-like fronds of yellow flag rose on either side of the curving channel. A small cove bulging outward from the creek was punctuated with water chestnut glistening on the surface, spreading like an insidious cancer.

Paddles thrusting the static water aside, the canoeists rounded a bend where, behind thickets of multiflora and barberry, sinuous vines of concord grape convoluted through the black birch trees. Yellow warblers repeated their “sweet, sweet, sweet” songs and flickered like golden sparks from bough to bough.

Exploring secretive inlets and fresh water tidal pools, elliptios and alewife floaters (mussels) were found embedded in mud the consistency of toothpaste. An inordinate amount of empty shells suggest winter kill-off, where the organisms were prevented from burying themselves deep enough to escape the severity of the season’s frost.

Mid-day, the canoeists hovered like a leaf in one of those numerous veins branching off of the main channel. Tussock sedge bristled all around. The flow of water rose around the canoe like liquid respiration. Rushes and and pickerelweed gently waved with the incoming tide. Yellow-billed cuckoos refrained: kuc-kuc-kuc-keow-kuc! The sky emitted sunlight through the marbled clouds. An emerald sheen reflected from the foliage. Dragonflies hovered above the translucent surface of the water, and minnows schooled, exploded into disparate planes, and then reformed.

The canoeists meditated on all of this, and somehow, if only as observers, played their part on the stage of life.

After meeting at River Highlands State Park, three observers, cautiously looking and listening for the first waves of neotropical migrants to alight in the trees above their heads, stepped out onto the nearby railroad right of way. Oaks, black birch, and maple stood on one side of the tracks; scrub-shrub such as honeysuckle grew on the other.

Walk a few yards...stop and listen. Walk ahead...listen, scan the trees with binoculars. In this manner avian species began to accumulate in the note book.

Besides the usual year ’round residents (chickadees, cardinals, titmice, etc.), there were migrants: chipping sparrow, phoebe, catbird, blue gray gnatcatcher. An ungainly flyer propelled its grey outline over the horizon; a great blue heron, probably winging forth from the rookery across the river in the Wangunk Meadows.

A vireo alighted on a shrub. A brief cameo, but enough of a profile to allow a check of the field guide: Philadelphia.

Listening, listening, listening. A period of silence; the bright, welcoming May light caroming off the green leaves of the white oak trees. To think of winter frosts and a silence of a different sort!

Then the bright orange breast of an Oriole was seen. With repeated cascading calls it foraged in the crowns of trees.

It was decided to continue along the rail line until the great sand plain came into view in hopes of seeing Blue wing and Yellow warblers.

Disappointed in that endeavor, the group made a slow retreat back through River Highland Park, on the gravel bluffs above the river. Black and white warblers, Yellow rumps, Warbling vireos, and Pine warblers were discovered.

Sunlight dripped through the flowering oak trees like melted butter. The spring air warmed the nostrils. In a few days, a vigorous Southern wind and summer-like temperatures would guide the majority of neotropical birds into the area, and an illusion of timelessness would reign in Nature once more.
A side trip to observe an eagle’s nest on Gildersleeve Island rewarded viewers with the sight of an adult on its towering stick abode. This nest had failed last year. But the sighting gave hope for the upcoming season.

In spite of the frosts of February and the blanketing silence of snow and ice that capped the reservoir, Spring came gently to the trap rock ridges. The sun blushed like an embarrassed debutante through the imperious white pines looking down at three botanists and a ballerina-ingenue (far removed from the times she clung to her father’s arms impatiently swinging her tiny pink rubber boots!) as they maneuvered the root-gnarled footpath.

Heads craned upwards to catch a glimpse of the returning Pine warblers tripping through the shaggy boughs of the evergreens. A glance along the needle-strewn forest floor, however, made clear that the scheduling of the field trip date a trifle later than usual was still not enough to overcome Father Winter’s extended visit.

A vast carpet of Dog-tooth violets crowded the dance floor, spotted green fronds touching “cheek to cheek”. But none were seen flowering. The Trillium, as well, bent and nodded swollen buds, but that was all.

The four ambled on, pleased with the April ambience and absence of the usual cold wind that often blew over the still icy waters of the reservoir. The young ballerina, already able to look into her mother’s eyes without lifting her head, fondled her electronics with practised teenage insouciance.
The talus slope loomed. Ah, at last the Dutchman’s britches proudly displayed their yellow and white pantaloons to everyone’s delight. Someone noticed the Bloodroot coyly exposing their petals behind a scalloped fan of basal leaves. Ramps, a gourmet’s delectable treasure, like lime-colored tongues burst through the decayed oak leaves covering the talus rubble.

Maintenance work to facilitate water runoff towards the reservoir heavily impacted the edges of the pathway. Blue cohosh, Rue anemone, Hepatica, and Trillium struggled to greet the sun through the smothering wood chips and rubble cast upon them. Clusters of Spring beauty bravely waved their long thin leaves, yet were flowerless. The determined Round leaved Hepatica, however, proudly blossomed forth purple and white petals.

The ballerina became less taciturn and distracted when she spied frogs in the littoral shallows of the reservoir. A newt was seen hovering. This aroused her genuine interest. The child returned and momentarily defeated the tyranny of puberty.

A rising trail, difficult but rewarding; at the top stretched gatherings of undefiled Hepatica and Rue anemone. A lone Dog-tooth violet exposed its yellow, bell-shaped flower.
Though there was more potential than actual in the field and the contrast between age and youth left one tinged with a glimmer of sorrowful nostalgia, the anticipation of fulfillment conquered all.

Although the duck trip was canceled due to inclement weather and the realization that viewing spots were very limited because of the lingering winter, scouting ventures turned up some interesting specimens.

In Old Lyme, by the DEP Marine Headquarters, a boardwalk stretches beside the shore of the Connecticut River, goes under the RR bridge, and ends with a good view of the salt marshes above Great Island.

One could see rafts of Greater scaup, diving Red-breasted mergansers, Mallards, and Red-throated loons in the river just above the bridge. Overlooking the marsh, slices of open water among the thick sheets of ice harbored Hooded merganser and Pintails.

A quick jaunt over to Hatchett Point and a stroll along the arctic beach front towards Griswold Point turned up more loons, both Red-throated and Common, as well as Canada geese, Red-breasted mergs, Brant, and one optimistic Killdeer.

Back inland, the Connecticut River had opened up a bit. Ring-necks, Mallards, Common mergs, Hooded mergs, and Wood ducks were noted off of the shoreline in Cromwell.

When the ponds are released, finally, in late March or Early April, the viewing will be superb.

It was time to get down to business; the last several days my energy had lagged and I barely felt like puffing out my blue and silver lips. Hadn’t you ever experienced that momentary ennui before a stern and necessary task?

So I rose from my hardened throne of absolute zero and gave forth from my idle lungs a great and numbing exhalation…needles of frost…a sobering slap to the face of the earth, leaving a crystal imprint thereon.

In the morning when the sun arose and uselessly pried itself above the horizon, I stood and was satisfied with my work. Entire rivers shone brightly like stainless steel and were just as hard. The trees swayed and cracked like gun reports. But the earth was brown and squeezed of moisture like some tawdry sponge. It needed some embellishment. I would deal with that later.

And there were the six, huddled against my breath, picking their way up a hill called Mt. Tom. One of them even had the temerity to eschew a hat, or any semblance of protection worth mentioning. I have ways of dealing with such.

They rose their binoculars to their faces occasionally and pointed to things in the trees. Then they trudged on. It seemed to me that it was not a stroll they were taking but a determined march up to Calvary.

When they had reached the top of the hill, the six gazed at Salmon Cove somewhat subdued. If one could have reached down and scooped the gilded saucer out of its declivity one could have tossed it like a discus.

But there was a tiny string of open water emanating from the Moodus River. The group spied some waterfowl, probably geese—no great gods with hoary heads and seven-foot wingspans were noted. Too bad. Was it anything I was responsible for?

I watched as the determined troopers shuffled down slope, noting what they called “woodpeckers” along the way, and came to a gathering point with picnic tables. I chuckled coldly at the thought of “picnics.”

The group decided to abscond to a viewing spot beside the Moodus River. Did they appreciate how I gave freedom to that lone sliver of running water? I would deal with that later, too.

When the group arrived by the Moodus, the waterfowl came into clearer focus: Canada geese, Black duck, Common merganser, Hooded merganser, and Mallards. The birds appeared resigned to my handiwork and I would further test them.

A local landowner stopped by and conversed with the six. He showed them a video on his cell phone (that’s what he called it) of immature eagles feeding on the duck carcasses he had throw on the ice. But no eagles appeared on this day of deep azure blue and white sky frost.

The party broke up then. But two decided to peruse the river by what they referred to as the Chester Ferry. I was a step ahead of them. I had scraped my fingernails along the banks of the river and spat sheets of ice all the way across to this Gillette Castle, on the opposite channel.

But then I had a moment of weakness. Although my heart is rigid, it is not without pity, and so, to the delight of the last two venturers, an eagle rose above their heads, materializing from who knows where, and pirouetted silently in the ethereal razor sharp heaven. And as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

I left them smiling, but I furrowed my silver brow. I would never again allow a lapse in my unbending task—to silence the earth with ice and snow.

Bird numbers were down, but so was the food supply in some of the previously good locations. While there was some winterberry and a few rose hips, there were few juniper berries, autumn olive, or crab apples. Water was almost 100% open, providing more opportunities for waterfowl to disperse—that kept our waterfowl numbers down.

Preliminary number: 76 species. After count week and feeders are tallied, this number may rise to 78 or 79.

A noteworthy sighting: Male Baltimore Oriole in its bright orange coloration was seen by Alison Guinness and her group of watchers.

An up-dated tally will be posted on www.audubon-mas.org, and on the Cornell/Audubon CBC site.

Owl Prowls were disappointing again this year. The first trip was a rainout and canceled. The chances of finding owls in the rain is much lower than dry nights.

The second trip on Nov. 15th was another bust without the usual Screech Owls at Ravine Park or Crystal Lake Rd. We did hear an owl crying out along Lyceum Rd. in Middletown. It was thought to be a Barn Owl—they have frequented areas within a mile of that location in the past. It stayed in the treetops 100 yards or more from us, so we saw only a distant silhouette. No other owls were heard or seen that night.

Update: A group of very experienced birders equipped with night vision went out on following nights and found a Great Horned Owl with a young yearling owl nearby calling for food at the same location—very unusual as Great Horned Owls generally nest in Feb.–March and leave the nest by June–July. To have a sub-adult still begging in November is rare. It might have been a late nester or for some other reason the young was hanging on. That solved the dilemma of the unsure ID at Lyceum Rd. The trip participants and I had discussed the possibility that it could be a young owl calling for food, but I ruled that out. We do the trip in November so we don’t disturb nesting or feeding owls. Guess this was a late bloomer.

It reminds me of something Dave Titus always said: “Never make definitive statements about birds.” He was right again!

An October sunrise after a period of rain is like looking at the world through a stained-glass window; the primary colors- black, grey, gold, vermilion and blue each took their turn on the leaded framework of the sky until the sun blinked, dispelling all in bright yellow. There stood five participants, four adults and a boy. Two of the more serious birders compared seasonal notes—when and where and what species were seen at this time of year, the peak of fall migration. Then off to the first stop, the field of scattered goldenrod, mugwort, and milkweed that was formerly a vegetable farm.
The field had been converted to a soccer venue and a great pile of gravel loomed ominously to one side, as if the grim reaper hadn’t quite finished the job of smothering the remaining bunch grasses so vital to migrant sparrows and warblers.

The rising sun teased the eyes unmercifully. The group was excited at its immediate discovery of several species of sparrows: Chipping, Song, Savannah. It was as if they had uncovered a chest in grandma’s attic and had opened it with great expectations of the treasures within.
Circling the mound of gravel, calling out species to one another, suddenly the cry went out, “White crown! Immature!” A particularly satisfying denizen, the White crown; the immatures are especially challenging for any beginning birder to identify.

Meandering through the wet bunchgrasss, seed heads clinging to one’s clothes, down towards a dogwood dominated wetland, Palm warblers, Song and White-throated sparrows flicked up and down in the cover as if jerked about by an unseen puppeteer.

The trail led from the swamp back up towards the roadway. A few more avians were added to the list, picked out of the azure background of the sky as they flew by. Were those Pine siskins, that frenetic, bobbing flock in flight? Not definitively; that find would come later in the trip.

A short car hop away from the field lay the Nature center with its crushed stone trails meandering past Red maple wetlands and post agricultural habitat. Yet for the most part the group was met with a kind of Zen Buddhist silence, until suddenly, a Blue-headed vireo decided to expose itself unabashedly on a honeysuckle branch. Good find! Then came a burst of White-throated sparrows near the venerable White oak. A Ruby-crowned kinglet, hurrah!

The group left the dogwood and cedar dominated Nature gardens behind and made for a final rendezvous, the Guida Farm Preserve. Primarily a complex of mowed hay fields, it also harbored wooded margins and brushy edges. They walked, idly chattering, until, descending on a pathway beneath large oaks and black birch with crowns of catkins, the cry was raised, “Pine siskins!” There was a goodly flock of them feeding diligently. But that wasn’t the only surprise. A Black-throated blue warbler dangled from a branch of the oak, and a Northern parula flashed its blue and yellow neck feathers. Relief and congratulations on all sides, while the boy, nonplussed, merely twirled his antique binoculars around by the straps in some form of existential amusement.

Following downward on the path the birders passed a small pool of water and a thicket of Eastern cedar. A Nashville warbler materialized as if to add an exclamation point to the outing.

The satisfied party returned to their vehicles through the open hay fields. Gazing out to the West one could see the variegated hills putting on their autumn eye makeup and winking seductively. Too soon, that eye would become a blind, grey orb and the seasons would come full circle once again.

“Women, women, the tide is falling!” cried the leader of the shore bird expedition. He and two recalcitrant pilgrims were preparing to launch their vessels from the muddy edge of the Lieutenant River, and he was anxious to plunge in and follow the lowering brackish water as it flowed inexorably through the tidal marshes towards Long Island Sound. While getting her kayak into the water one of the pilgrims slipped precipitously onto her back side, the receding river having left the grassy bank extremely slick and looking like smeared chocolate pudding. No worse for wear, the sheepishly self-conscious kayaker climbed into her craft with aplomb and floated out into midstream.

The leader, meanwhile, clambered into the stern of his canoe and pushed off. “Snapper blues running?” he asked the fishermen casting bobbers underneath the Lieutenant river bridge.

The leader nodded. His partner in the bow of the canoe had at last settled down. The tall Phragmites loomed over their left shoulders. Between the bristling rhizomes the antideluvian Fiddler crabs rustled and hid in their muddy crevices. The group floated past a Snowy egret and an Osprey sitting in its nursery all alone, its fledglings having taken to wing. A Red tail hawk pirouetted over the adjacent bank.

Around a curve in the tidal creek a railroad bridge squatted on its stained pilings; the tide receded around them with alacrity. More fishermen appeared, this time in an aluminum boat. There was an exchange of nodding heads and encouragements of good luck.

As they followed the sinuous tidal creek the members of the expedition gazed down the length of mosquito ditches and other diverticula searching for bitterns or ducks. Then expansive mudflats appeared on either side of the creek like smears of black toothpaste. Legions of shorebirds probed the viscous sheen in search of worms: Least and Semi-palmated sandpipers; Semi-palmated plovers; Black bellied plovers; Lesser yellowlegs; Great and Snowy egrets. The imperious and bellicose Willets dashed about crying out their familiar staccato complaints.

Then a swooping Peregrine falcon tumbled out of the ethereal, late summer sky, wiping the mudflat clean of avian life, scattering them asunder in search of safety. Later, this magnificent predator would reappear like a fatalistic dream over Griswold Point, with a similarly panicked reaction on the part of the shore bird migrants.

Paddling on between granitic outcrops, the heads of turtles were seen briefly bobbing on the waters surface—Terrapins gulping air. More mudflats lie exposed; there, Short-billed dowitchers, like frenetic sewing machines, stabbed for worms and invertebrates.

Great Island appeared, lying flat and rustling in the onshore wind, its green lances of Spartina sparkling in the sunshine. Ospreys hovered and circled or sat on their platform nests crying “cheep, cheep!”

At last a landing was made on the coarse grains of sand constituting the ever evolving remnants of Griswold Point. Disembarking, the three paddlers skirted the Nature Conservancy’s string barriers protecting the Least tern and Piping plover nest sites. Seaside golden rod nodded heads circled with yellow haloes. Beach grass thrust upwards sharp, sword-like fingers, and Beach pea grew in cork-screwed fashion along the sand. Within a chattering and livid grouping of Common terns several young Least terns were observed. Other Least terns continually landed and burst upwards from behind the Conservancy’s string fence. Then, gratifyingly, three Piping plovers were discovered. Like animated, light-colored grains of sand, they haltingly traversed the pebbled reaches of the tide-exposed barrier beach.

On an exposed point jutting out into Long Island Sound several Oyster-catchers stood looking like tuxedoed waiters in red bibs preparing for their work shift. Ruddy turnstones busied themselves in the wavelets nearby.

The three birders in the expedition paused. They stood by the rack line gazing out over the shivering green waves of the Sound, the yellow glints of sunlight reflecting off the seaweed-laden swells. A line of blue clouds, “the chairs of the gods”, lay hyphenated on the horizon. One could almost have felt immortal, but for the plethora of empty shells that crunched beneath one’s feet: a reminder of the inevitable passage of life, and the ever turning tide.

Quietly slipping into the water where the Salmon converges with the Connecticut River, the pair of canoeists effortlessly pulled their way over the imperceptively rising tide like a leaf cast there by the wind. Numerous natural canals emanate off the main stem of the Salmon from the low flood plain. Pushing into one of them, the canoeists were immediately immersed in the bankside vegetation: Tussock sedge, Royal fern, Yellow flag and the less numerous Blue flag, and Arrowwood just beginning to flower. Cedar waxwings sat pertly in the dead branches of a ruined Green ash. The Red-winged black birds sang “kon-ka-reee” and flashed red-yellow shoulder patches. A Yellow warbler kissed the air with its voice. It was a timeless moment in a wild Venetian avenue. But the Salmon beckoned; there was more to see.

Approaching a bend in the river where the sedges stroked the shallows, the green-yellow Golden club emerged, spreading their long namesake flowering parts upon the waters surface with purpose and dignity. Then a monoculture of Sweet flag rose up and acquiesced to the touch; their broken fronds exuded a pungent, cleansing aroma.

Farther on, steep slopes ending in granitic outcrops punctuated the banks of the river. Between the rocks the wild azaleas grew, tempting the nostrils with their late spring perfumes.

Gliding across a wide exposure of muddy substrate a turtle scuttled away before the canoeists’ inquisitive clutches. They entered the Moodus river, a small tributary of the Salmon. There the mussels and non-native clams lay clearly visible and easily retrieved: Eastern elliptios; Alewife floaters; an Eastern Pondmussel. Also found were the debris of civilization: pottery shards and a bottle.

Turning back to the main stem of the Salmon, suddenly the clouds, with knitted brows, shed cold spring droplets upon the canoe. The paddlers huddled patiently beneath the over- hanging boughs of a Hemlock. But here was another excuse to meditate: The sky did more in those days than to shade him and to house the spirits. Bits of the sky could be eaten. This was different from other foods. Rice and palm oil filled the belly. Sky fills the heart. With a scrap of cloud inside him, a person can float and dream and find again the peaceful, joyous feelings that filled him before High God left the earth.

The sun returned, the canoe glided onward adjacent to grey granite slabs poking downwards to the black depths of the river. A return of shallow low flood plain; pebbled substrate, waters of even depth; then boulders rising to the surface; quickening waters; the rush of foam over the dam and a hurried pull-over; the Leesville Dam, with its interesting fish ladder, finally attained.

An al fresco lunch upon a picnic table was followed by an exploration of the dam and its ladder, designed to aid anadromous fish over the Leesville towards the free flowing riffles of the upper Salmon. Copious flows of water cascaded over the low profile of curved concrete and exposed bedrock, sounding like the steady cacophony of steam escaping from a boiler. An Osprey glided upstream and then pirouetted downward upon a hapless Bluegill.

Above the dam lay an architectural sculpture: huge blocks of concrete were spaced across the river to break up the winter ice floes before they could amass on the lawns of downstream houses built inconveniently on the flood plain. These concrete molars chewed and ground down both ice and wooded debris; as a result the teeth were in dire need of a flossing.

On the return the canoeists escaped once more into an enchanted diverticulum. Sitting quietly surrounded by Tussock sedge, Yellow flag, and Buttonbush, a diminutive, tumbling waterfall near shore lulled the senses. One felt, oddly enough, as if a dagger was being gently thrust into the breast, and one was dying both of joy and unrequited sadness.

Peter and Barbara Razca gave an interesting tandem program on lichens, what they are, their lives and their quirkiness in the world of biota. Did you know that lichens have one foot, so to speak, in the world of fungus and the other in algae or cyanobacteria (sometimes both). Each aspect of this symbiotic alliance contributes to the lichen’s uniqueness. The fungal part houses the lichen and allows it to reproduce by spores, while the algal or bacterial part carries out photosynthesis to feed the organism.

Lichens are like the canary in the coal mine. They are sensitive to pollution in the air and are a good indication of clean air. Antibiotics are made from some of the 500 unique biochemical compounds produced by lichens. Some lichens make nitrogen in the air usable to plants. Lichens provide homes for spiders, mites, lice and other insects. Lichens can be used as a natural dye to color wool in spectacular shades. People and animals eat lichens, but some are poisonous, so don’t experiment.
Lichens are classified into 3 groups: crustose, folliose, and fruticose. Crustose is just that – a crust covering its substrate, looking like paint. Folliose also looks like its name, like a leaf. Fruticose looks like small shrubs with tiny branches.

After the program, stations were set up around the room to look at different lichens under the microscope. Some look like colored dots, others little stalks with brightly colored tips, still others were rippled or in folds.

With all that information in mind, we departed for a foray in the Vine Street Cemetery where Juan Sanchez pointed out the great variety of lichens making their homes on the gravestones. Some were like paint covering entire stones. There was an orange variety forming splotches here and there. One stone contained British Soldiers with their tiny red caps.

A rainbow and a cuckoo’s song
May never come together again,
May never come
This side the tomb...

Where the seven bird watchers gathered, at River Highlands State Park, there was a Grey-blue gnatcatcher's nest perched on a limb of an oak tree. Necks craned, binoculars covering their faces, the group was pleasantly surprised by this auspicious beginning of the field trip. The days leading up to the expedition featured calm winds that eventually veered from the cold Northeast and trended towards a more southerly flow.

The morning was beaming sunlight, a golden palm that gently pushed the group forward along the rail line adjacent to the park. Amid idle conversation, a smattering of non-human voices were heard in the understory: Catbirds, Titmice, and Chickadees. The neotropical birds were not exactly dripping from the branches of trees as in olden times. But the first weekend in May is usually the early season for warblers. No matter, the first Pine warbler or Palm warbler sighting is always a delight.

As the birders approached a golf course, adjacent woodlands produced a Northern oriole, its flanks like slices of orange cantaloupe. Then the Southern hemisphere appeared in the guise of an exclamation point in red and black: a Scarlet tanager. Necks painfully craned towards the crowns of trees. Lips pursed and throats emitted high pitched slurring sounds. The birds appeared like feathered ghouls, then disappeared into the enfolding verdure.

Walking onwards back into the park above the Connecticut river, the Worm eating warblers, usually present, failed to arise from the slopes. But the Black and whites and the Northern Parula did not disappoint.

On returning to the gathering place over undulating gravel paths it was noted that 35 species had been seen; five were warblers.

A special side trip to the banks of the Connecticut river to observe an Eagle’s nest on Gildersleeve Island left the observers perplexed. A fulsome nest that had a breeding pair of Eagles in it just several weeks earlier now sat abandoned and hollow. It would have been the first time that the nest was unused in several years. Who could speculate on the cause?

And if they were in England, perhaps the five amateur botanists would have experienced a more beguiling bloom of flowers. Though the moist morning yawned and broke into a yellow smile, and though soft winds rushed through the boughs of the towering pines standing beside the still waters of the reservoir, the earth yet held remembrances of winter.

Walking over the gnarled roots of the pines, whose crowns echoed with the staccato chirping of namesake Pine warblers, exploring the cracks and crevices of wind-fallen trees and branches, the party found at best only the promise of spring flowers and not their fruition. Clusters of Dog-tooth violets lay like spotted supplicants, unready to raise their yellow petals to the sun. Nodding trillium lowered unopened buds towards the brown, pine-needle covered earth, tightly bound into green fists.

Climbing higher along the path over the rubble of a talus slope, Dutchman’s breeches were discovered partially opened, their creamy white pantaloons dangling like clothes in a haberdashery. A few Bloodroot shyly blossomed, peeking out from between unfolding basal leaves.

Along a steep, highly eroded path studded with bits of broken basalt a few Rue anemone tentatively flashed white petals. The leading stars of the morning, however, were the pink, white, and lavender Hepatica. They had no fear of the winter past; their lamb’s ear-shaped, bristling basal leaves spread willingly in the undergrowth, and their flowers were expressively basking in the fine April exhalation.

Though the majority of flowers held back their colors in reserve for another date, the pure sky, the trill of the returning neo-tropical Pine warblers, the sun itself, promised a fleeting season and potential life.

The four gathered together at the departure point, a parking lot at Wesleyan University, looked at each other in resignation. All of the inland ponds and even the meadows surrounding the Mattabassett River were still under siege, with up to ten inches of ice covering some bodies of water. Eschewing Research Parkway in Meriden, where the ponds exhibited expectant fishermen with tip-ups rather than dabbling, diving ducks, the group headed to Haddam Meadows alongside the dark, flowing Connecticut River.

The shores were flaked with shelves of wafer crisp ice, and the slight wind wafted its cool breath over chilled, freezing water. The sympathetic sun rose out of the early morning mist, however, and shone encouragingly off the surface of the river. Common mergansers, the distinctive males looking like bits of whipped cream in a cup of dark tea, floated in the river channel. Looking up-stream towards the grey, slumbering island with its sandy flanks sliding precipitously toward its banks, Ring-neck ducks frolicked in circles.

Walking along the shores, scope and tripod slung over the shoulder, binoculars at the ready, the numbers of southern robins stalking the snow-speckled meadow were noted, as well as the Song and White-throated sparrows in the hedgerows adjacent to the river bank.

Then the first Tree swallows of the season dipped and glided over the dark river.

Stepping gingerly over crenulations of ice-encrusted, rotting- snow covered footpaths, the group surprised a pair of Wood ducks resting in a postage-stamp sized ring of open water within a bristling fortress of buttonbush. They absconded before the scope was set up that could have projected the males’ intrinsic beauty closer to the eye and pleasing to the imagination.

Turning away from the swamp and walking back towards the river, the group discovered a Bald eagle perching on the opposite bank. When a pair of mallards slowly drifted off, the scope was set up on the ice shelf encrusted onto the mud of the river bank. The eagles’ full glory, its white head and tail, was now fully appreciated.

We took a short trip down to the East Haddam Swing bridge. Crossing over it led to a spot on Cove Road overlooking the convergence of the Salmon and Moodus Rivers. The scope was barely set up in the rutted, muddy car park when a voice cried out, “Do you see the Tundra swan?”

There it sat among the familiar and larger Mute swans with its black bill and straight neck. This was a taste of the wilderness that was the New England landscape, pre-colonial times, when thousands of Tundra, formerly “Whistling”, swans migrated along the Atlantic flyway toward their arctic breeding grounds.

Awed, but nevertheless continuing with the business at hand, further scanning revealed Black ducks and Hooded mergansers. An immature Bald eagle glided low over these waterfowl, but they were not alarmed, even when the eagle paused to alight on a nearby tree bough.

The panel of glass that was winter seemed to stand stalwart even as it exhibited hairline cracks at its edges. But the day reached a satisfying conclusion, when an afternoon walk by the river in Cromwell led one to a view of a Horned grebe, diving with impunity for prey in the dense, cold waters of the Connecticut river.

It had been a very uncompromising winter. When Father Frost spoke through glinting glacial teeth, the countryside was thickly coated in white powder. Icicles dangled dangerously from the gutters on the houses. Wisps of smoke and steam emanated from every crack and crevice of the brown-red chimneys in the city.

Bundled like polar bears, three individuals decided to explore a hillside above a cove framed by the convergence of two rivers. That one of these rivers was tidal had no bearing on the issue—the hardened ice that blanketed the cove stultified any effects of the ebb and flow of barely liquid water, bellowing for attention from below its burdensome, frigid cap.

The way was eased by the earlier passage of a snow machine. The depth of the overnight frost made walking on the snow an audibly crunching experience. The bare limbs of deciduous trees and the powdered shoulders of evergreens, the protruding skeletons of last summer’s goldenrod and other forbs, the granite outcrops and spare gravel exposures, all took on the appearance of a winter motif sewn into a coverlet spread over a frozen feather bed.

When the three reached the summit and were able to view the cove, observing in the distance the trees of the flood plain separating the Salmon from the Connecticut River, an arctic silence permeated the atmosphere. Down to the left of the mountain, where a day before the Moodus River sent out a thin thread of dark open water that harbored ducks and swans, now was a solid opaque avenue, void of activity. Looking toward the sky, bright but warmthless, the three pilgrims scanned for the large dark wing spans of eagles. But nothing was flying. Nothing cried out “Ki-ree-ree!” Not even a Red tail hawk was seen, whose ubiquitous spirals are so much a part of the woodland horizons.

A treacherous downhill path over ice and snow led to a plateau in a field with benches. There, the three sat in a windless, sunny reverie, listening. Oh, the usual winter residents were self-evident: juncos, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, and various woodpeckers. But skyward—again disappointment.

After walking back to the cars it was decided to visit the Chester Ferry opposite Gillette’s Castle. That had always been the go-to, reliable viewing spot for eagles.

The stillness of mid-morning along the Connecticut River was like a rifle-shot. One could, if he were adventurous, walk across the river where in summer, tourists gurgled over a three-minute trip to Hadlyme by ferryboat.

Scanning the hemlock-barren slopes beneath the castle, one of the three commented: “You could always pick up two or three eagles there.”

But a slight, sword-bearing wind, streaming down river answered, “Nevermore.”

A scope on a tripod was set up on the hardened silver shin of the river nevertheless. What was an eagle sitting in a nest turned out to be a stick pile with a white chapeau of snow. One of the three, so frightened of mistep, crawled back to shore on hands and knees. The underbelly of the river belched its delight.

The three departed, going their separate ways. On returning to the riverside in Cromwell, however, an eagle was finally spotted alighting from Wilcox Island, that hunched like a bristling mohawk hair-do in the middle of the river, sprouting from a skull that was shaved and sheen, glittering with ice.

The Count total looks like it will be 78 for Count Day and 2 for Count species week, for a total of 80 Species. The crazy souls who made the annual trek had some surprising rewards—American pipits in Haddam by the Conncecticut River by Marcy Klattenburg’s group, and a lingering American woodcock, beautifully photographed by Carrie Conrad and company, my group west of the river had a Wood duck, and there were sightings of Sapsuckers everywhere by many groups. So it was interesting, but not the best count in terms of overall numbers. Jim Mockalis got out on Monday and added a Count Week Species. Mary Augustiny had trouble becuase the roadways in her area were poorly plowed so although her numbers were down slightly, she did add some good birds to the total. I want to thank everyone for such a great effort on such a miserable day.

Special thanks to George Z. who picked up our only 2 Count-Day owls when he returned from the Westport count in the evening. (To be skunked on owls I fear would not have been okay with Mr. Titus, and we surely would have paid with 20 more weeks of winter.) Great Horned and Barred were added as Count Week species.

By the end of January, an updated tally should be posted on this website, and on the Cornell/Audubon CBC site.

Prowl #1: This year’s owl prowl #1 was a great evening compared to last year. I am more confident now that the hurricane had moved and disturbed wildlife last year more than we realized, and might be the reason we were skunked with no owls on the two trips last year.

On this trip, Ravine Park produced an agitated red-phase Screech owl. (I know it was red phase because it buzzed us and flew between me and others of our group about two feet above our heads.) Then a few minutes later, it came across the road and again dived at us low. On this pass, it was talons-out and about three feet above me—a little unnerving to say the least.

Later, near Jarvis factory and Long Hill Brook, we were watching a massive 8–10-point buck, that had to weigh 250 lbs., walk through the parking lot. At that same time, a Screech owl came out of the brush on the north side of the road, and sat on the edge of a bush in plain sight, 12 feet from us and about fourfeet above the ground—grey phase.

Lastly, another Screech owl calling near the Miller Road bridge in Middlefield (not seen, only heard ) ended the evening.

Prowl #2: “Boom to Bust” is what we should have called this one. We had more mammals than owls. Two deer ran 10 feet in front of me at the end of Laurel Grove Road, and a Fisher cat, out on Freeman Road, also flirted with death. Only one Barred owl was briefly heard near the parking lot at Guida’s—thanks, Marcy. It had the combination scream-hoot thing, they sometimes do—a little eerie. It called one time and quite a few people heard it, but that was it. Played the tape and stood silently patient, but no further luck. We tried Ravine Park, Long Hill Road, Lyceum Road, River Road in the Maromas section of Middletown, and Freeman Road—and nothing. Of course, this trip had more participants. I would guess we started with 15 or so, and maybe had 11 when we were near Guida’s.

A brief introduction and without further interruption, an anticipatory party of eight motor-pooled to the first stop on the Crawl, a former bean field. In this era of planned obsolescence and mercurial cyberspace there are too many “formers” and not enough “still remains”. One half of the field was now reserved for soccer. But why continue to push gravel into the heart of the very productive bunch grasses that dominated where vegetables once grew? Why smother the grasses that were so vital to the diminutive birds in migration? Why begrudge these sparrows and warblers weighing no more than a 25 cent piece their daily bread?

The party nevertheless commented on the delicate October colors flushing the maples lining the entrance to the field and the morning’s pleasant temperature. The harsh brown gravel was not completely unwelcome. The party counted twelve Killdeer along a wet detention swale. Sparrows were immediately flushed from the bases of the remaining expanse of goldenrod, dashing quickly from covert to covert. Savannah, Song, and White-throated sparrows were abundant, as were Palm warblers with their pulsating, ochre tails.

In a low declivity dominated by Silky dogwood Swamp sparrows alighted. The elusive White crown sparrow remained unbidden, however—even the strongest voices “pished” away to no avail. Next it was off to the nearby Nature Garden on Randolph Road. There, despite the abundance of red and purple food crops drooping from the Eastern cedars and Flowering dogwoods, all was quiet. So the party entertained each other in pleasant banter while following the crushed stone foot path. A turn or two and a large White swamp oak presented itself. Here it began to liven up a bit, with Golden and Ruby crowned kinglets, Nuthatches and Woodpeckers actively foraging. White-throated sparrows peeked out from the shriveled autumn forbes.

The final exploration site was Guida’s Farm natural area. There, hedgerows and copses of cedars and ancient apple trees lining the hay fields seemed inviting spots for birding. The sun rose higher into the blue-vaulted spaces of the early autumn sky dotted with cotton balls that turned out to be clouds. Sparrows were scarce, but Palm warblers exposed themselves readily. A Raven was heard clacking overhead. Someone shouted. Looking above, we admired Black vultures, a scourge in southern climes but still a novelty here.

Standing in an expansive field of mown grass we could see the mottled north west hills woven into specks of red and yellow. The Crawl ended but it became the portal to a changing season, one that was stern and meditative.

Four species of sparrow were noted; 32 species total.

The naturalists, Patricia R. and Lawrence C., pulled their truck off shoreline Route 156 onto the knobbed gravel landing beside the highway bridge over the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme. With practiced movements, wasting little time, they silently undid the fastenings holding the canoe to the top of the truck, lifted it off with a twist of the shoulders and placed it onto the river’s edge. They loaded it carefully: binoculars; a satchel filled with field guides enumerating everything from birds to butterflies, bulrushes to sea shells; a short-handled net; and devices to probe the mud or sandy shore. Deftly maneuvering around large boulders in the shallows that could grind the gell coat off of the bottom of the kevlar canoe, R. and C. quickly entered the main stem of the river’s current.

The tide was lowering. Ripples formed around the highway bridge abutments showing the outward direction of flow. The paddles slurped effortlessly through the calm surface of the river that was busying itself to the sea like a stream of dark green oil. Spartina alterniflora bristled low on either bank of the river; above the spartina a monoculture of invasive Phragmites australis towered menacingly. As the water receded from the black, muddy banks of the river the dizzying maze of Phragmites rhizomes could be seen and burrowing among them were the Fiddler crabs. The males waved their over-sized claw for all to see. The crabs quickly scuttled into their holes for safety as the sleek, brown camouflaged canoe slipped by.

An Osprey nest loomed above the Phragmites. Although it was past the zenith of the summer and the nest was clear of fledglings the Osprey chirped angrily at the canoe’s passing.

There were a few D.C. Cormorants lingering on the old wooden pilings by the railroad bridge. An aluminum boat holding three anxious Blue crab fishermen hovered around its anchor. Shouts of anticipation and disappointment mingled with the satisfied recovery of prized “keepers”.

Paddling through the convoluted tidal marshes, R. and C. peered down into the green alleyways that were the mosquito ditches etched into the marshes at regular intervals, in hopes of seeing a ghostly apparition in the form of a Least bittern or a cautiously strutting Clapper rail. None were seen.

The canoe rounded a final curve and glided into the open waters of an embayment. The receding brackish waters had not yet revealed the extensive mudflat that later would harbor a plethora of peeps and herons. The August atmosphere was unusually light and lacked humidity. People along the rocky outcrops beside the embayment tugged at their lines.

A large and shallow expanse of water was traversed and then the curvaceous tidal creek resumed. Another mud flat lifted itself out of obscurity; several Great Egrets stalked its edges. When R. and C. got within sight of Griswold Point, the remnant of a barrier beach standing defiantly before the Sound, they paddled down a narrow passageway lined with Osprey nests, again occupied by irritable birds.

By now the mud flats lay like gooey pancakes covered with peeps: Semipalmated and Least sandpipers in large numbers; Greater and Lesser yellowlegs; Short-billed dowitchers; and Semipalmated plovers. Snowy and Great egrets towered over the other birds. Willets poked about with blunt and bluish bills.

Fishermen drifted out of the quickly thinning waters of the channel. “The gnats are murder,” they explained.

The naturalists nodded in acknowledgement. When they had recorded their data, they too turned their canoe around and made for the yawning, restless open waters bobbing before the barrier beach.

The clouds bundled higher as the day warmed. There was a long line of them forming a vaporous blue and white train that hung unmoving above the Saybrook lighthouse. The white, cone shaped lighthouse perched on the grey chain of granite boulders jutting out from the mouth of the great tidal river into the Sound. The canoeists became one with the pastel canvas surrounding them like figments of an artists imagination.

Shorebirds recorded: Least sandpiper; Semipalmated sandpiper; Willet; Short-billed dowitcher; Black-bellied plover; Semipalmated plover; Greater yellowlegs; Lesser yellowlegs; Glossy Ibis; Great blue heron; Snowy egret; Great egret; Common tern.

On an earlier field trip in May to observe returning tropical migrants, I mentioned to Dan C. that it had been a long time since I last saw a Cerulean warbler. This was simply due to neglect; of not being at the right place at the right time. We agreed to meet sometime in June at a Nature Conservancy–Lyme Land Trust preserve where Dan had frequently encountered Cerulean warblers during the breeding season.

We met one dry and sun-blessed morning in June. We proceeded with anticipation along the well-marked trail. An open field was on our right and to the left, a hedgerow over-shadowed by a forest of oak and hickory. There we quickly met several American Redstarts. Proceeding into the heavily forested tract before us we heard a Woodthrush dreamily calling “ee-o-lay” and the Eastern Wood Pee-wee’s softly mesmerizing downward whistle. Chattering Ovenbirds flitted through the under story and watched as we passed by.

As yet, no Cerulean warblers, but after a stream crossing and a steep climb to a point where two trails converged, there came a distinctive call as if the interior forest itself was whispering. We stepped excitedly off the trail to follow the sounds high in the fully fleshed out canopy where sun and shadows lingered.

The shadows suddenly moved. Craning our necks, peering upwards, we were blessed with a sighting of a bright blue and white male Cerulean warbler, his necklace of color extending beneath his chin like the pinned cape of a scholar reveling in pomp and circumstance. Gratified and spellbound we observed the warbler through the magnifying lenses of our field glasses. But then other Ceruleans appeared, male and female. They flitted ever lower until, not needing binoculars at all, we stood gaping at the birds that were eye level as they probed the foliage for worms.

We counted several Ceruleans along this stretch of the trail. Satisfied, we ventured out of the preserve, noting more Cerulean warblers along the way, for a total of seven individuals.
Yes, John Keats, a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Let the memory of this joyous June morning stand as defense against the tawdry restlessness of an anxious world.

I was surprised when a couple of birders showed up at 7:30 am ready to do some birding on a morning when other field trips were cancelled due to rain. There were a few specific sightings which stood out. An Ovenbird popped out on a branch about 10 feet above us in the middle of the trail iving us a great look. We had an excellent view of a Blue-winged Warbler that perched on an open branch in full view for several minutes, just as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. A Red-shouldered Hawk flew overhead while calling out keeyar keeyar keeyar!

Other notable sighings included: Barn Swallow, Yellow-throated Vireo, Black-throated Green Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Savannah Sparrow, and Field Sparrow. We only had light rain during the trip and recorded 46 species in all including those identified by ear.

While it was true that more golden rays of the early morning sun hung from the boughs of the oak trees than neo-tropical migrants, still the season was just beginning and it had been a cool spring with unfavorable eastern winds. Even so, eight experienced birders and one inquisitive child with bright expectations began their trek along the railroad right of way bordering River Highlands State Park.

The usual year ’round resident vocalizations were quickly noted: Titmouse, Mourning dove, Cardinal . . . Heads craned upwards; a White breasted nuthatch appeared. The oxidized rails stretched before the birders. The exploratory one with eyes gleaming behind the black frames of his glasses kept his interest earthward, constantly stooping and lifting some treasure up for his father’s inspection. Father was patient but he had come to record warblers and . . . someone heard a Wood thrush’s soothing, sylvan music. Then the repeating chatter of an Ovenbird came splitting through the woodland: teacher! teacher! teacher!

The ambling proceeded. Song sparrows materialized in the border shrubs; Catbirds also. A House wren made everyone think of 19th century courtyards and daffodils nodding along the stone walls. But they were on a railroad right of way and the courtyards and chicken coops had long ago been replaced with monotonous suburban lawns and architecture.

Around the bend by the golf course Tree swallows swooned. Was that a Rose-breasted grosbeak? Oh, yes. “On key,” one of the birders, a piano tuner, noted. An anecdote followed: It seems that Boris Pasternak, Russian poet and author of Dr. Zhivago, had a promising career in musical composition. But when his idol and mentor, composer Alexander Scriabin, heard a piece that Pasternak had written, was impressed and played back a few bars that he especially enjoyed, Scriabin was off-key. Pasternak could not hide his disappointment, but Scriabin replied that neither he, nor Tchaikovsky, nor Wagner had that ability. “There are many ordinary piano tuners with perfect pitch,” Scriabin had said, “but there is only one Scriabin!”

The piano tuner laughed at this story told at his expense. But the Worm-eating warblers found along the ridges of River Highlands State Park were splendidly mellifluous. Black and white warblers were also noted there. A sharp whistle, and everyone went “Ah, a Great-crested flycatcher!”

The sloping forest fell to the sandy shores of the river down below. Spontaneously, the kinetic boy urged his father to let him slide down the shifting glacial outwash soils. But no, discretion reigned over valor.

Returning to the trip’s beginning and its end produced Yellow rump warblers and a Scarlet tanager. The boy was flagging, his energy not as boundless as one supposed, though his non-sequitor comments led one to believe that there was an inventor or an explorer germinating somewhere deep inside peering through the lens of his glasses.

Someone calculated the day’s “catch”: Five warbler species; forty-four total species.

Footnote: A side trip to the shores of the Connecticut River within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge enabled several participants to observe a Bald eagle nest with three healthy chicks. One hopes that June’s unwelcome surfeit of rains did not subtract them from the lists of surviving fledglings.

Passing beneath White pine trees that towered overhead, following the deeply rooted path and stepping over the uneven, bulging black roots grasping at their feet, five botanists and a ballerina, who danced along the way more deftly than the rest, went exploring expectantly.

The chill breath of almost - spring blew rudely in the ears from off the pure, grey waters of the basalt reservoir. The pine boughs spoke to themselves soto voce, but then lifted their voices with the rising velocity of the wind. A Pine warbler’s staccato pitch was followed by a flicker of movement. There was somnambulance down below on the blonde, needle-heaped floor of the evergreen copse. The Trillium were nodding, still asleep; the cool air kept their purple flowers wrapped in a verdant shawl. The Dog-tooth violets lifted their spotted arms from beneath the pine litter like supplicants towards the sun; their flowers, unaware of the season, lay hidden behind the green altar.

A slight incline away from the frothing waves of the reservoir led to a talus slope tumbling down hill in grey confusion. Stalwart ramps appeared between the jumble. Someone spied the fan-like basal leaves of Blood root, their tulip-shaped flowers shyly poised as if just off stage awaiting the warming cues of the sun’s reluctant rays. Soft murmurs of pleasure emitted from the young ballerina; lightly tripping towards them, she formed a pas de deux with a fine grouping of Dutchman’s britches. Unafraid, they bravely dangled their white pantaloons edged with yellow cuffs like clean laundry drying on the line and trembled in the wind.

A rising, rivulet-punctuated pathway with loose basalt like misshapened ball bearings came to a few Rue anemones flashing white petals confidently. Then a clump of Hepatica was discovered, unusually shy, bristling with fine hairs like an adolescent’s beard. “Not yet, come back in another week” its unfolded flowers seemed to say.

A downward pitch challenging the footing of the botanists led again to the edge of the reservoir’s steel grey, lucid waters. There were more sleeping Trillium; Cohosh with black arms akimbo; a few Spring beauties nestled in the dry oak leaves, their flowers pink and tentative. Ginger went undiscovered and even the Early saxifrage refused to honor the season and lay estranged and disaffected among the rocks.

However, for all the promise of spring, the botanists were grateful. The walk was fine and the ballerina made her appointed hour on the stage.

Footnote: One week later the trap rock hills were a phantasmagoria of blooming flowers. Twelve species were noted.

The conditions were partly sunny, cool, and breezy. We started the trip by checking the fairgrounds area where we found Blue-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Mallards, Wilson's Snipe (about 20), 2 Greater Yellowlegs, and several Killdeer. We eventually walked further up along the river trail and found a few Ring-necked Ducks and some Black Ducks in another flooded area. We observed one eagle sitting on the nest that appeared to be looking down into the nest frequently. We later checked out the rookery area where there were well over 100 active Great Blue Heron nests. We also found American Wigeon and Wood Ducks in this area. The wind started to pick up as the morning went on so we ended the trip a little early.

Other species seen or heard included: Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker,Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Eastern Phobe, American Robin, American Crow, Blue Jay, Brown-headed Cowbird, Common grackle, Red-winged Blackbird, European Starling, Tree Swallow, Mourning Dove, American Tree Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, American Goldfinch, House Finch, Belted Kingfisher, Northern Cardinal, Red-tailed Hawk, and Mute Swan.

On a cold, sunny day of about 35°, four trip participants counted 32 bird species, including ten species of ducks. Starting with Dave Titus’s original route, we began at Bishop’s Ponds in Meriden, then visited North Farms Reservoir to find Coots, then to Wallingford’s MacKenzie Reservoir, and then ended with a walk into Cromwell Meadows to pick up Wood Ducks.

Duck species seen: Ring Neck, Black, Green-Wing Teal, Widgeon, Gadwall, Bufflehead, Mallard, Common Merganser, Hooded Merganser, Wood Duck.

We managed to get our annual Backyard Birding in between snow storms. Nine folks were treated to the antics of a Carolina Wren plus all the “regulars” at Joanne’s many feeders. While visiting another Thompson Hill backyard, we noted a very orange House Finch, and were told that he has been around all winter. While walking in the other direction, we were delighted to see seven Bluebirds on a utility pole.

Mattabeseck Audubon sponsered - Salmon River CBC - Christmas Bird Count - tallied 78 species on Dec. 16th, 2012. A somewhat normal year—one new species and a few missed ones. Complete list can be found at National Audubon website. http://netapp.audubon.org/cbcobservation/

We were fortunate that the rain held off on Count day. We had 47 participants five of which were feeder watchers. Ten groups logged a total of 500 miles by car and 14 miles by foot. Five groups chased owls pre-dawn and logged an additional 37 miles and 9 hours. A Pine Warbler, a first for this count‚ was seen in East Haddam by Mary Augustiny et al. Details were forwarded to the CT compiler Steve Broker.

The most common comment from observers was a lack of some species in certain locations. Most often this was due to a lack of food, specifically berries. There were no rose hips at all, and junipers were devoid of fruit. This correlated with no catbirds and only a few mockingbirds. Winter finches were more numerous than in past years, but not explosively so. Lastly, some duck species were numerous while others were tough to find. Ice had not really locked up lakes and ponds as of mid-December. Unusual sightings were a Barred owl seen and a Screech owl heard in mid-afternoon. Although this does happen, it is not frequent. Barred owls have been seen commonly this winter in daylight hours.

There were two Owl Prowls this year, both were poorly attended. The first had two participants and myself and the second had six folks. Both trips—the first on the 10th, and the second on the 17th—had no success. A first for myself, because we always come up with at least a Screech Owl. Weather was good, although chilly. For next year, I am setting the dates now as November 2nd and 9th, so everyone who is interested please mark on your calendar now. Also, please fill out and send in my survey on the back page of this issue (or use the link on the MAS website for the online version and email back to me).

A bright sun arose in the East and greeted the landscape’s first hard frost of the season. The colored copses of trees and shrubs had not yet reached the summation of their finery. There was a stillness in the atmosphere and the sky changed hues as the sun climbed higher away from the nocturnal, exhausted by its revels, to the sober and determined diurnal.

Five celebrants of the autumn avian migration stepped into a post agricultural field that was gradually being smothered by a gravel operation in preparation for the inevitable development. Still, the field bristled with bunch grasses such as goldenrod and milkweed. They sequestered flocks of constantly fluttering sparrows and warblers. The experts among the group quickly discerned six species of sparrows, the prize being the white-crowned, an immature. Numerous yellow rump and palm warblers were also noted, as well as ruby-crowned kinglets and lingering catbirds.

Adjacent to the converting bean field is the Middletown Nature Garden. There, as the sun gradually warmed the atmosphere, was a surprising breathlessness, as if the season had sucked in all the ripening features of autumn as well as the bird life and left a suspenseful vacuum. The bunch grasses, cedar, and dogwoods were at their peak. Gradually the paths led the migrant seekers to an area where Nature finally exhaled, forcefully tossing forth droplets of birds: white throated sparrows, a hermit thrush and a charming black throated green warbler.

It was decided to visit the patch work fields and hedge rows of Guida’s Farm Nature Area. There, with an expansive blue sky unhindered by forest canopy, cooper’s and the ubiquitous red-tail hawks hovered teasingly as if arrogantly beguiling the piteously earth bound.

Though sparrows were scarce a lone ruffed grouse, so rare, replied to someone’s distracting “pishing” with a cuffing of its wings, a low and ever increasing fanning of feathers.

At the end of the morning the hills of Mount Higby, visible from the open field where the birders stood, glowed orange and red in preparation for the climax of the season and anticipated the next, and darkest, tapestry.

Six attended this trip and a neighbor joined us for a total of 7. On the way to the platform we saw a Water Snake which swam away as we made our way up the path. From the platform, we saw butterflies, dragonflies, and plenty of frogs. Not a lot of bird activity, but we did have great views of Green Herons up close and in the scope. Another nice surprise was a sighting of Spotted Sandpipers. An Eastern Wood Pewee and a Eastern Phoebe traded turns landing on a branch. Wood Ducks and Chimney Swifts were seen flying and a Great Blue Heron was parked in a tree. Other birds in the area included Belted Kingfisher and Ruby-throated Hummingbird. We also spent some time watching Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers at the forest edge. Overall, it was a relaxing trip and opportunity to show some people the bog platform for the first time. We noted that this would be a good place to do some stargazing as well. Total number of bird species: 24.

Five of us met at the Park at 7:30 am. We agreed to keep the trip short to avoid the heat and humidity. Highlights of species seen included nice views of Orchard Oriole, Prairie Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Ovenbird, and Yellow-throated Vireo. At Hurd Park we were able to find a Hooded Warbler. Total species for the trip was 42.

Spring Migrants trip had few participants, but had a good look at Louisiana Waterthrush and Prairie Warblers—about 35 species. My truck got stuck on a state forest road, but a passerby helped push me it out.

Joe Friday: Can you tell us a little about the field trip to Cromwell Meadows?
Pat: An early spring morning announced itself like a golden bell ringing in the skies . . .
Friday: Just the facts Ma’am.
Pat: Please don’t be so brusque, Mr. Friday, your rudeness will force me to call for the beadle!*
Friday: I AM the bloody beadle.
Pat: Oh, if you must know, 7 people saw 41 bird species, of which seven were warblers.
Friday: One warbler for each, whadya call ’em? Birders? Is that right?
Pat: Yes, and you’ll never guess the bird of the day.
Friday: Ma’am, the only birds I know are stool pigeons.
Pat: The bird of the day was a Canada warbler.
Friday: Fine. Is that everything?
Pat: From all sides came the singing of birds as from a sylvan opera house . . .
Friday: That’s all, Ma’am. You have a nice day.
* Beadle: Minor official whose duties include keeping order.
Larry Cyrulik

Gathered together in the gravel parking lot of River Highlands State Park , 10 birders looked skyward on an overcast early May morning. Where was the spring sun that can shine with such green and yellow hues upon the newly opened leaves of the oak trees? Silence… Where were those sentinels of life and continuity, the neo-tropical migrants?

We soon found out as we marched onto the railroad tracks bordering the park. As if on cue the birds appeared on stage, each playing its melodious, vibrantly colored part. No matter how jaded the expert, the first orange Oriole or black and red Rose breasted grosbeak of the season always elicits a gasp of pleasure and a feeling that the world is still worth living in. When, from the distance, the Wood thrush echoes “E-olay!”, someone always conjures up Thoreau’s exclamation of how the bird’s voice brings one right back to their childhood.

Of the 48 species seen 11 were warblers, most notably a Magnolia. Numerous Worm-eating warblers were seen on the slopes of the park leading down to the river. However, there were no Yellow, Pine, or Prairie warblers seen. And this simply left one hungering for a subsequent field trip in order to satiate one’s unquenchable appetite for discovery.

Thirty-eight brave souls tallied 71 species in cold raw conditions. Some species were down, while there were also a few surprises. Birds that rely heavily on berries were hard to find and in some usual haunts they were non-existent, and so were the berries. Seed crops were, for the most part, fine and so seed-eaters like sparrows, finches, doves, etc., were found in normal numbers. It was difficult locating ducks and other water species because they were dispersed over a greater area due to the vast amount of open water.

Notable records this year were:
4 Pied Billed Grebes in 3 distinct locations
3 Chipping Sparrows
2 Common Loons
3 groups had Ring Neck Ducks
4 Turkey Vultures
2 Saw whet Owls
2 Pine Siskins spied at a feeder on Wapowaug Road in East Hampton.

I am not sure if it was the change from Friday to Saturday or the trips being held a week later than usual, or some other factor, but attendance was poor. The owls did not want to participate either—no owl at Ravine Park. Other locales did not turn up anything either, until we arrived at Laurel Brook Road, near the brook that comes from the reservoir. We had a brief encounter with a Northern Saw Whet Owl, and near Lyman Orchard, a Screech Owl was heard.
The Owl trip on November 19th had a few more people, but the owls were still being stubborn. No owls again at Ravine Park. Never, in 30 years, had this happened. A lot of the large trees in the park had come down during the snow event on the October 29th. On Lyceum Road in Middletown, we finally did have an owl come in, with persistent calling. It delighted everyone by flying 4 or 5 feet above the road. The participants who hung tough on that cold night also heard the chatter-type call of a Saw Whet owl on River Road in Maromas.
Look for these trips earlier next year and possibly one in the spring.
Joe Morin

They slid their crafts silently into the tidal creek as the unseen orbiting moon slurped the green waters back into Long Island Sound. Osprey uneasily chirped at the passage of the three naturalists as they paddled past bristling banks of smooth cordgrass. They soon bottomed out in paper thin waters. Glistening mud flats on either side of their crafts harbored numerous shore birds: Lesser yellowlegs; Semipalmated sandpipers and Semi-palmated plovers; Black-bellied plovers; Snowy egrets; Great egrets. A Willet flexed its wings and bolted with a familiar staccato cry. Dunlin slept with heads folded under their wings. Least sandpipers probed the mud like nervous, twitching facial muscles.

Turning back towards a deeper channel the naturalists felt a fresh wind wafting off the Sound. The sun warmed as the morning progressed. Beaching along Griswald Point, the three strolled the rack line, noting the plentitude of mollusks and gastropods, the variety of algae and other life forms that evolved and poured into the vacuum that nature created. More Semi-palmated sandpipers; a Ruddy turnstone; the sharp, diving silhouettes of Least terns and the slower, undulating flight of Common terns; the wary, combative gulls: Herring; Laughing; Ring bill.

Walking past the cages that sheltered the nurseries of Piping plovers, Monarch butterflies were seen hovering around Seaside goldenrod. The exposed black mud of buried former salt marsh bristling with truncated spikes of Phragmites gaped in the shallow tide. Tide pools of tepid water harbored shrimp, crabs, and numerous minnows awaiting the return of the waters of the Sound. The skeletal remains of huge trees, formerly the “Plantagenets of the woods”, lay buried helplessly in the sand.
Culminating the trip on the blonde, sandy fringe of Great Island, adjacent to Griswold Point, facing the Connecticut River as it kissed the Sound with the waters of four states and Canada, the naturalists absorbed wind and sun, both redeemed and resigned to the impermanence of all, and the migration of bird and soul.

Seven birders met at the Portland Middle School parking lot in the pouring rain. Fortunately, the showers had ended by the time we reached our first stop at the Portland fairgrounds. Conditions were too muddy to walk deep into Wangunk Meadows so we decided to concentrate on the area around the fairgrounds and skating pond. Our day started with a sighting of four Great Egrets and a Great Blue Heron feeding at the far end of the skating pond. As we walked around the edge of the pond we found Solitary Sandpipers and a Wilson’s Snipe. Behind the fairgrounds was another shorebird whose identity we were unsure of. A photo identification showed it to be a Stilt Sandpiper. There were a dozen Eastern Bluebirds that were putting on a nice show for us. There were juvenile and adult birds landing on the power lines and fence posts bordering the fairgrounds. Some were seen with mouthfuls of food. We found a Yellow-rumped Warbler and Palm Warblers in the same area. We drove to the north entrance of Wangunk Meadows where we saw a good number of Savannah and Swamp Sparrows. Other sparrows for the day included White-throated, Song and Chipping Sparrows. Some of us continued on to The Helen Carlson Sanctuary where we had a close-up view of two Green Herons. Other birds viewed there included a Wood Duck flyover Pileated Woodpecker and someone’s pet Muscovy Duck. We ended the day with a brief stop at an undeveloped portion of the Airline Rail Trail where we added a Red-tailed Hawk, Red-eyed Vireo, and Common Yellowthroat to the list.

Total species for the day 38: Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Green heron, Canada Goose, Wood Duck, Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, Kildeer, Solitary Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, Wilson’s Snipe, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Red-eyed vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Tree Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Gray Catbird, European Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler, Common yellowthroat, Chipping Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird.
Larry Nichols

There were four of them, adults that is, and one child, precocious, preoccupied and demanding a lift rather than walking the heavily rooted path in her pink rubber boots—the father, so tall, from where the little girl could see far out onto the chill April waters of the reservoir with the mallards, geese and mergansers sailing thereon. She fidgeted while the leader of the trip in his brown felt hat pointed out the early arriving migrants, pine warblers, calling from the tops of the dense, thin-needled trees.

The first encounter with wild flowers was the nodding trilliums, swollen buds not yet in bloom. Down on the earth the father put the little girl; two steps and back up to his stalwart shoulders. Around his back she twisted, smiling, cognizant of a father’s forbearance.

The thin man knelt down to examine the not yet blooming dog tooth violet. Where are the blossoms? Was the winter that severe? Finally the man adjusted his brown hat and pointed to a lush blanket of Dutch-man’s breeches. Then the child clambered to the ground and Mother, with a guidebook in her hand, said “Look, look at the tiny pantaloon’s.”

So brief a study and then back on father’s shoulders and the smile and the swinging feet. An ascent up a moist rocky slope, where Bloodroot and Hepatica were found. Ramps were interspersed between the basalt, Rue anemones unfolded and she of the swinging feet put her fingers to her lips and glanced to the side.

Descending slightly towards the waters edge, the trap rock rolling and probing the bottoms of the feet—the girl twisted and her father became momentarily exasperated: “You must learn to walk”. But he shouldered her again, smiling nevertheless.

“Ginger, Spring beauty and two species of trillium, all finally in spring glory,” the thin man, the angular one with the brown hat declaimed.

But it was time for the little one to turn back , to get on with the importance of her day. She waved goodbye. Years hence, somewhere in the hidden dust of time a memory might stir, if only for a moment, in the space of the few seconds it takes for a petal to fall from a flowering tree, about the time she looked at wild flowers with a man in a brown hat.

Dawn at last and I’ve made it through another evening. My perch was much better chosen; that owl never even saw me, and they’re pretty good at what they do, the demons. Still, I’ll take my chances with them rather than a cat any day. Those devious, over-fed charlatans, getting their masters to think how cute and innocent they are, lazing about the couch all day. Without their fishy snacks and kitty litter, they’re nothing. Well, I’ll tell you, I’d like to see them cross the Gulf of Mexico at night in one fell swoop. Heck, I weigh less than a twenty-five cent piece and I make the trip twice a year.

Oh, what have we here? Wait a minute, let me adjust my perch for a better look. And forgive me if I eat my breakfast in front of you, I see an inchworm on that oak leaf over there. Hmm, good. Now, there’s a bunch for you. Must be ten of ‘em with binoculars. The peeping Toms, craning their silly little necks trying to invade my privacy. I’m not cooperating. Go find some other suckers. You can pish, pish all you want, people, I ain’t fallin’ for it.

There goes a catbird…you dummy, it’s just them, those what-do-you-call-its? Birders? What an insult, calling themselves that. Well, nobody ever said catbirds have brains, just look at their moniker.

Hey, Rose-breasted grosbeak, don’t warble for them. I love your voice too, (although my call isn’t so bad either, just more subtle) but why satisfy ‘em? What did they ever do for you, except to have too many children and then strip the earth of all our hiding places?

Well, I’m uncomfortable, I have to move to another branch and...Oh, hades, that little narrow-eyed bugger with the expensive binoculars must have seen me, they’ve stopped and are all looking my way. No, thank goodness, its just that Oriole sitting out in full view. They’re just a bunch of egotists anyway, those Orioles, with that orange and all. Hey, you want to be seen, buster? Go ahead and show off. Lucky you don’t get your head blown off one of these days.

All right, now they’re moving down the old railroad bed, chattering like a bunch of magpies. Never figure ’em out, those people. I’ll just go about my business now, the real business of life, as a tropical migrant.

Four of us met at the commuter lot in Glastonbury. Our first stop-Great Pond Preserve Glastonbury. We heard plenty of birds here but had difficulty finding them. Best views here were of a Hairy Woodpecker and an Eastern Phoebe. Scarlet Tanager and Great-crested Flycatcher were heard but not seen. We spent time trying to track down a Common Yellowthroat but it wasn’t long before we were chased out of the area by hungry mosquitoes.

Our next stop at the Old Marlboro Turnpike powerlines. We had better luck here with nice views of Eastern Towhee, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and an Indigo Bunting. Blue-winged Warblers could be heard but not seen. We had excellent views of Prairie Warblers from just a few feet away.

Next we moved on to the reservoir area. We had a nice look at some Baltimore Orioles, saw Osprey flying over the area, and found a Least Flycatcher. We had several more species of warbler here including: Yellow, Common Yellowthroat, Black-throated Blue, Northern Parula, Black & White, Pine, American Redstart, and Black-throated Green. Then we saw two Canada Warblers flying back and forth across a gated path. We all had a terrific view of them! We ended the day with a quick check of the fairgrounds were we found some Least Sandpipers and Killdeer. Total species would exceed 50 if you counted everything heard or seen but the real highlight of the trip was the great views we had of the Prairie and Canada Warblers.

… then the two of us and the neophyte, bright with anticipation, walked to a rise in an abandoned gravel pit. Pioneer species ringed the cinnamon-colored gravel excavation and sprouted underfoot: black locust trees, multiflora rose, bittersweet, dandelions and grasses. The neophyte wore sneakers suitable for the tennis court and carried opera-sized binoculars but her enthusiasm was great. Our insouciant cataloguing of Indigo buntings quickly turned into grateful mentoring under her influence.

As we descended along the gravel path warblers blinked yellow amongst the green foliage. Where the way leveled out, standing vulnerably in the warm sun like the dark stump of a fallen tree was “Old Mrs. Mudbottom”, a female Snapping turtle. She was ambling off, having just deposited her load of immortality, a dozen or so of pure white eggs. She blinked cautiously as we bid her good-morning and went on our way.

A long, shaded, sinuous and moist avenue of sand, dappled on either side with robust impatiens, touch-me-nots, led past duck-weed coated pools of flood plain habitat. Ascending, descending fluting sounds of the Warbling vireos surprised our guest who recognized Robins, that was all. So energized by the newness of everything, she discounted the mosquitoes and flies, enjoying her “tough trip through paradise”.

The clucking and associated uproar emanating from over 86 nests filled with Great blue heron chicks thrilled us even before the nests came into view. Standing in a corn field, looking through the eye piece of a scope, the colony could be discerned, spread out for an eighth of a mile along a peninsula jutting into the Wangunk marsh. An uproar arose whenever an adult (swordfish who had feathers, rather than smooth skin, and flew, rather than swam) clumsily landed, flapping its wings for balance. Then it regurgitated into the mouths of clamoring progeny.

Rejuvenated by this timeless cycle of life we skirted the corn field, pointing out Yellow-throated vireos, Orioles, Yellow warblers, Catbirds and surprising Wood ducks tucked in between emergent marshland plants such as Pickerelweed and Arrow arum. Signs of beaver-chewed Spotted alder... And above, the sunny halo-fitted May sky, a saint unto itself, attended to by numerous twirling Tree swallows, as it sat on its golden throne.

0900 Put in at the confluence of the Salmon and Connecticut Rivers; ebb tide.
0915 Passing exposed tidal mud flats; Arrow-head, Arrow-leaf arum, Pickerelweed glistening in the sun.
1000 Noted the long, cylindrical flowering bodies of the Golden club, a species of special concern.
1015 Observed an Osprey nest with two adults. Could not see a chick, but adult behavior denotes they are serious about the nursery.
1033 Make landing at foot of Mt. Tom—part of Machimoodus State Park, to reconnoiter. This has been designated the year of the turtle, and we were rewarded with the discovery of an Eastern Mud turtle. Identification came later—because this turtle is not indigenous to Connecticut, could not believe what we were seeing. Did not take photos—a blunder!
1100 Identified several species of mussel, easily visible in shallow water: Tidewater mucket, Eastern elliptio, Alewife floater, Eastern pond mussel, Eastern lampmussel.
1130 Pass close by Mute swans, no incident.
1230 Tide returning, passing under Route 151 bridge encounter large Striped bass, a sea-run fish feasting on other sea-run prey.
1240 At the bend of an island at the foot of Leesville dam, downstream velocity of the water increasing. Discover and identify a submerged Wood turtle. Took photos!
1248 And landing. Examine the fish ladder and peruse above-dam habitat. Many species of Dragonflies hovering above the water. Black swallowtail butterflies drinking moisture from wet sand. Northern water snake explores the grating above the fish ladder. An Osprey retires to a large Hemlock to pick at its lunch, an unlucky Pumpkinseed.
1400 After lunch, shoving off for the return to launch site. Tide still rising. Noted absence of Barn swallow nests underneath new Rt. 151 bridge.
1545 Followed inlet leading deep into flood plain marsh. Wood duck boxes, Green ash, Sedges, Yellow and Blue Flag, Common yellowthroat warblers.
1615 Pulling out. A fine early-June expedition.

Species seen: Eastern Towhee, American Robin, Downy Woodpecker, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk, Tree Swallow, Northern Flicker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Brown-headed Cowbird, Wood Thrush, Indigo Bunting, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, White-breasted nuthatch, Common grackle, Great Blue Heron, Gray Catbird, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Greast-crested Flycatcher, Common yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Common Raven , Belted Kingfisher, Bald Eagle, American Redstart, Black &White Warbler,Red-eyed Vireo,Yellow-throated Vireo, Red-winged Blackbird, Tufted Titmouse, Warbling Vireo, Wood Ducks, Mallard, Canada Goose, Baltimore Oriole, and Mourning Dove.

Highlights of trip included: close-up view of Worm-eating Warbler feeding on lower branches, clear views of 3 different Indigo Buntings, young American Redstarts feeding in trees at eye level, excellent view of Ruby-throated Hummingbird in scope-also performing “U” flight, and a female Wood Duck followed by 7 ducklings.

We met at Wadsworth Mansion Parking lot at 8:30 am. It was a mild winter morning with temperatures in the 30's and very little wind. We first explored the grounds around the mansion which has a good number of cedar and pine trees. There were birds feeding on the ground beneath the cedars including Northern Cardinals and Dark-eyed Juncos.Perched in a tree set back in the woods was a Red-shouldered Hawk.We also found a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in this vicinity which showed off nice ruby-red throat coloring We ventured off onto some of the trails which lead from the Wadsworth Mansion down to Wadsworth Park.the snow on the trail was sufficiently packed so we didn't have much trouble walking on them. Along the way we noted evidence of fox and deer being in the area.The birds were quiet through the deeper part of the trails but that silence was interrupted by 3 Common Ravens which were quite vocal as they passed overhead. One of the ravens was circling above with a Red-tailed Hawk for a while, the two not seeming to mind each others presence. We ended the trip by walking near the banks of the Coginchaug River within Wadsworth Park.There were not a lot of new species to add here but they were numerous and active in this area. It looks like the Wadsworth area has the type of habitat that should make for good spring birding.

Blue Jay,Tufted titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, American Crow, Blue Jay, Common Raven, Ring-billed Gull, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Northern Cardinal, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-tailed hawk, and Red-shouldered Hawk.

On a bitter cold Sat. morning in January, 10 hardy souls trekked Thompson Hill Rd. in Portland, looking for elusive birds. The walk yielded a Goldfinch and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Back at the Luppi house, the following birds were tallied: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Mockingbird, Starling, Red-winged Blackbird, Cardinal, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated Sparrow, and the surprise--a fat, dark Robin, probably of the Newfoundland race, feeding on holly berries. Photographers in the group got some great shots of birds at close range, taking advantage of the many feeders. The birds' need for water when most every source is frozen was illustrated by the birds' use of the heated bird bath. A variety of seeds are offered here, as well as several suet feeders. When the temperatures are this cold, birds need the calories provided by the suet. The participants also enjoyed warming up with hot beverages and goodies. A fine winter day was had by all!

A cold early December evening; an equipment truck with a large satellite antennae on its roof is parked along side a curve on Miller Road just west of the bridge spanning the Coginchaug River, its chilled water barely audible as it passes under the road. Bright, jarring camera lights dispel the darkness clinging to the trees and underbrush nearest the truck , but has left the oak and black cherry farther out in the fields looming moodily on the periphery like shadows in a Rembrandt painting. There is a camera man and a newscaster standing bundled against the cold. The newscaster has taken off his knit cap and is facing the camera. By his side, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, can only be described as some homeless fugitive: a small-framed man with long disheveled hair drifting in disorderly fashion from a small head, whose panic-stricken, narrowly-set eyes squinted uncomfortably into the camera lights. He has a torn and ragged blanket thrown over his shoulders and he continually turns and stares back into the garishly illuminated shadows of the trees and shrubs behind him. From time to time he fitfully raises a muddied pair of binoculars to his haggard face.

Newscaster (to camera man): Are we ready? O.K., one, two, three… (with “on air” composure and professionalism) And now, for the first time on camera, an in depth interview with the man everyone has been calling “Purple Haze” because of his strong, psychedelic appearance and his strange obsession.

Newscaster: Excuse me, sir, Mr. Purple Haze, if I may call you that, let me remind the viewers that you have been camping out at this spot by the side of the road since the first week of October searching for a single species of bird; a bird that every observer on one of your sparrow crawl field trips saw, except you. A bird that was a so-called neo-tropical migrant, and that has probably flown to southern Mexico several months ago. Yet in your eyes this search is not an obsession?

Purple Haze (eyes doleful and melancholy, voice low and hoarse): No, it is not an obsession. Only let me explain…

It was a fine morning. The azure sky was interwoven with filigrees of white cirrus clouds. The temperature was comfortable, climbing into the sixties. There were four birders. Our first stop was the old bean field. We passed underneath several maple trees whose leaves had begun the autumnal change and were speckled with orange and red. The field was like a lake of bristling silver, the golden rod growing there in abundance having gone to seed. The numerous sparrows began popping up and we rapidly counted them: song, white throat, savannah, and field. And then a single snipe flew out of a water retention basin dug out of the gravel-laden earth. I didn’t call it first, but I saw it, and was satisfied. As we swept over the hilly field, an immature white crown sparrow appeared. Again, I was not the first to call it, but I saw it clearly.

Our next stop was the Nature Garden. The Garden is really a post agricultural pasture interspersed with Eastern red cedar, dogwood, various shrubs and herbaceous growth and punctuated by large oak trees. It was unusually quiet at first and I was worried that I was wasting everyone’s time. But as we turned a corner a Black-throated green warbler danced out of the woods adjacent to the path. I felt elated because we called out the bird simultaneously. There were purple finches, also. I was a little slow there, but I SAW them.

Newscaster: Let me interrupt you for a moment. You seemed very concerned about the order in which a bird was seen, or whether you made the first discovery. Is that some kind of compulsion of yours?

Purple Haze (shifting his feet and tussling with his blanket): Of course it shouldn’t matter, but I was the leader of the field trip and I felt responsible, and yes, maybe compulsive. But you have to at least SEE the bird. (muttering) You have to at least see it.

Our final stop was here on this country road. That’s when “the bird” appeared. They said it was a Magnolia warbler. It was in some dogwoods, just off the road. Everyone was delighted; I didn’t SEE it! I moved to the left and then I moved to the right. Something fluttered. I drew up my binoculars and pretended to see the warbler, to maintain my dignity, but I was seething and unrequited. By the end of the morning, the field trip over, we congratulated ourselves as “hail fellows, well met”. We had seen 38 species, of which five were sparrows and seven were warblers. When everyone dispersed I pretended to go home, but I doubled back here and began looking for that elusive bird.

I glimpsed it almost immediately; a wing tip was showing. Hopeful, I circled a dense shrub and…it was only an oak leaf. So, I continued my vigil. I thought I exposed that Magnolia several times; it flew about when I psh, pshed it.

Purple Haze (impatiently): No, no, I psh, pshed like a steam iron. That’s an alarm. The bird is supposed to jump out, practically into your lap! But no such thing. I began to think the creature was teasing me a little, that in the end it would have mercy and come forward peacefully, staying put as if in a curtain call. But it continually disappointed me. I began to think that bird was one of those mean spirited kinds of individuals whose sole purpose in life was to torment me unconditionally. Nightfall began to approach, so I grabbed an old blanket from out of the car that my dog used to lie on. I found a packet of oyster crackers and a can of water and prepared to spend the damp, chilly evening camped out, awaiting the return of daylight. In the greyness of early morning I knew I’d have that Magnolia, I was certain of it. The indifferent sun slowly rose, but there was no bird. Oh, I heard a chirrup and a twit or two, but all of my pshing and baby talk had no effect. Now I knew that this was a demon and I had better consign myself to a very long siege.

I took to visiting the convenience stores at night to avoid interrupting my quest. I found an old discarded tarp along side the road and set up a make-shift tent. Every morning before dawn I would position myself in the cold shrubbery and wait…and wait…and wait. Sometimes a beak would flash, or was it a droplet of water? Sometimes a toenail would shine, or was it a bead of ice sparkling in the first light of day? I cried, I laughed, I prayed. I knew I had a demon on my hands, for if it were simply mischievous, the Magnolia would have tired of this business by now, exposed itself like a harlot in a shop window and be off on its business.

I have tried every technique known to mankind. I have camouflaged myself with sticks and draped moss over my ears. I have crawled, rushed forward, and climbed trees. One whole day I feigned indifference, whistling at my fingernails and pretending to decamp. I felt that the bird would come forward then, as if to say, “All right, I’m here after all, aren’t you relieved?” But again, to no avail. No, my search is not an obsession, it is a quest, a holy one, forged in the crucible of suffering and hope for redemption…

Newscaster (to audience): Well, there you have it, folks, the driven, compulsive man known as Purple Haze, explaining in his own peculiar style, the reason for his unending search for a…phantom.

Camera man (who throughout the interview had been hermetically sealed to his equipment, putting it aside with a strange smile, whispers): Hey, mister, I think I see the BIRD.

Purple Haze (like a wild boar suddenly awaking from a dose of a biologist’s tranquilizer) What? Where? Tell me where immediately or I’ll… (he dances in a frenzied circle).

Newscaster (to camera man): What the…? Sam, are you nuts or something? Turn off those lights! Pack that camera! Let’s get out of here, now! Oh, god…oh, my god!

The first owl field trip (Nov. 5th) had our usual Screech owl at Ravine Park. There have been owls there for each and every field trip since the 1980s and prior. And, why not! This is perfect habitat for the 8" owl with its 20"–30" wing span—two steeply-wooded mature hillsides with a creek running at the base. An owl dream location, even with the nearby hustle and bustle of the Wesleyan University campus. That night some folks also heard a Saw Whet call ever so briefly as they often do at this time of year. It called with its typical toot toot toot whistle about 6 or 7 times and went silent. That was all that was seen or heard, but the owl at ravine park was very odd because its top half was a reddish phase coloration while the bottom half was grey. Unusual, but according to Julio De Latorre not rare and it occurs more often than we realize.

On the Nov 12th trip, we took a different route through South Farms and then Maromas. We heard a Screech Owl at Lyceum Road near the brook, and saw another screech owl about 15' above us at Hubbard Pond on Bear Hill Road in Maromas. The best was yet to come, as on the last stop I called a Saw Whet out of the woods. He not only tooted, but screamed and screeched and made bat-like sounds that I have never heard before. Most unusual, and I am still trying to locate a recording with these newly-heard calls. Sadly, there were only 5 individuals left by that hour of the cold evening. If I find the calls mentioned I will provide a link from MAS website.

Four of us spent the morning birding in the unusually dry and dusty Wangunk Meadows. We started the morning by pointing the scope to the top of a leafless tree where we saw a colorful pair of Eastern Bluebirds. Shortly after, 11 Great Egrets flew over.
A total of 5 sparrows were recorded on the trip: Song, Lincoln, White-throated, Swamp and Savannah. The Savannah gave us the best view of the sparrows we encountered. It was perched in a bare tree at a height of about 15 feet and it stayed put while we took turns viewing it through the scope. There was also an Osprey perched out in the open next to the river. It was a young Osprey which showed a lot of feather detail as the sun reflected off of it at just the right angle. A Norther Harrier was seen soaring across the field. Other raptors included Red-tailed Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk (heard). The only warblers were Yellow-rumped and Common Yellowthroat. There were a lot of Northern Flickers around as well as downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers.
Overall, the birds were a little shy so we had to work for them recording a total of 30 species but the few nice sightings that we had made the morning worthwhile.

Gently mounded slopes of glacial outwash, stratified drift, till, and bedrock outcrops of granitic schist and gneiss formed along the easter border fault; wooly-adelgid-infested eastern hemlock, mixed hardwoods of oak, beech, and hickory; disturbed areas with tree of heaven and hillocks covered with browned bunch grass; man-made depressions, some dry, some with pools of reflective water, a cold northeast wind, blizzards to the south.

Some bundled, others too lightly dressed, eight observers climbed a gentle rising dirt path and cheerily exchanged viewpoints. The winter residents made their appearance: golden-crowned kinglets, tit-mouse, chickadee, red belly woodpeckers and nuthatch, robins and juncos, crows and bluebirds. A promontory, and a silver silence down below where the convergence of three rivers formed a bowl-shaped cove. An opening in the channel to the left with a spray of white mute swans punctuated with the dark backs of black ducks, like poppies on white cake frosting. And then, like some winged Samsons set free from the binding columns of a Babylonian edifice, bald eagles on the horizon. And the cold wind along the cheeks and the napes of necks of the observers lessened or seemed to lessen; the conquerors of the world, now conquered with awe of a seven-foot wingspan.

Dryly noted in the bird log book: 16 species of birds: 3 Bald eagles, some just overhead at tree top height, all immature.

The early fall found Northern Cardinals bringing their somewhat mottled-looking young to the sunflower seed feeders. The Red-bellied Woodpeckers seemed to have trouble enticing their young to the feeders--the adult male flew repeatedly from feeder to a nearby branch to give the juvenile a seed. Finally, the young one got the idea, after at least 8 tries. At that stage of its growth, the “baby” was as big as the parent, but had not yet acquired the red on the head.

On Nov. 26 and again on Dec. 1, we were treated to the sight of a flock of Cedar Waxwings feeding on the berries on the dogwood trees and on the red cedar trees. These are two trees that provide wonderful winter food for birds. The eastern red cedar, in particular, offers both food and shelter to winter birds.

During the first week of Dec., a male Sharp-shinned Hawk checked out the back yard several times. The local Blue Jays gave their warning calls and the feeder birds immediately scattered.
Don’t forget to call for a spot on the Jan. 23 Backyard Birding morning. We hope to see some of the above and many more!

Because of the massive storm predicted (and received in some areas) on Dec. 20, the 35th Annual Salmon River Christmas Bird Count was postponed until Dec. 27. Stalwarts were out on the 27th, in spite of steady light rain, and mud just everywhere. Fog from warm rain hitting frozen ground reduced visibility to maybe 100 yards. The fog, rain, and mist did not lift until about noon-time, therefore, the morning yielded few birds, and our numbers, especially species numbers, were way down. Ducks were in short supply because ponds and lakes were frozen solid, with a coating of rainwater on top. Hawks, also, were not present because the weather had reduced the availability of prey.

The tally was held at the Cypress Restaurant as planned. Preliminary count at the tables was 58 species, however, several lists were yet to arrive, so the species count should rise somewhat when all captains receive and report all of the lists.
In this first preliminary count, Great-Horned Owl was missing—the first time we have not had this species in the history of the count.

Data from final tally: 19 observers logged 91 hours and 331 miles: (42°-54° 13 hours and 26 miles by foot, 78 hours 305 miles by car, 9 feeder hours, 5 night hours and 23 miles.
Count Day began in dense fog and mist, and became cloudy. Although it was above freezing, most still waters were completely frozen over, and moving waters were partly open.
Final species count: 58. Count Summary

I had just sat down at the bar of the Cypress Restaurant and ordered a glass of beer. Looking around me I noticed a man sitting alone nearby. He alternately glanced disinterestedly at the television or stared at his folded hands. He was slim, bearded with long hair; serious-looking or perhaps tired. Then, from the kitchen, John, the Cypress cook (he told me once he liked “cook” and not the more pretentious “chef”) came sliding over purposefully and sat down next to the “serious one”. I overheard the following:

“So, how’s Mr. Larry doing tonight,” John asked genuinely. He adjusted his glasses with a forefinger and passed another finger over his mustache. A shot glass in front of John was filled with cold Tequila. “Now, dear, don’t go away”, he commanded after he quickly imbibed the glass. Another was quickly poured.
“Surviving, just surviving,” Mr. Larry characteristically replied to John’s inquiry.
“That’s good, aren’t we all?” John chuckled slushily from the back of his throat.
“I led a field trip today,” Mr. Larry went on, warming to John’s even companionship.
“Yeah, and what did you see? Dear, I’ll have another, when you get a chance.”
While his glass was refilled a sardonic grin passed involuntarily over my lips .
Mr. Larry began: “Well, it was one of those early fall mornings; blue marbled sky, maples colored orange and yellow, dew on the lawns and fields. Four of us set off to the old pepper fields that are half-filled with gravel now, but in the corner the field is flush with goldenrod. Good cover for sparrows. We called out five species: Song, Savannah, White-throated, Chipping and Swamp.”
“Good, good,” John replied approvingly. But I had the impression that he didn’t know figs about birds or anything else outside of the kitchen. “I went out for a few minutes today myself to have me a smoke; it was a pretty day out there, sure was.”
“Over in the Nature Gardens we got four species of warbler: Palm, Yellow-rumped, Common Yellow-throat, and everyone but me saw a Black-throated Blue.”
“Oh, well,” John commiserated, stuttering just a bit. “I…I know what you feel. When everybody else gets something and you don’t get it…”
“Then we went out to Miller’s Road. We pulled a single Marsh wren out of a clump of cattails. Someone spied a Black-throated green warbler in a burst of yellow-rumps and chickadees flying through the trees. I never saw that one either. But I did spot an immature White-crowned sparrow along the hedgerow by the cornfield, and a Kestrel soaring off over the swamp maples. Those Kestrels are becoming all too rare.”
“Un, huh,” John said. His attention span seemed to be winding down as his eyes drifted over the bar room.
“Altogether, we counted forty-three species,” Mr. Larry finished.
“That’s good, that’s good,” John congratulated Mr. Larry, patting him on the shoulder as he stood up, gazing around the room. “Well-l,” he drawled. “It’s time I had me a smoke.”
He shuffled outside with a quick and deliberate gait. Mr. Larry went back to his former repose, staring at his hands or at the television, and I returned to my own business.

An early morning gathering; yawns, smiles, anticipation; a warming sun spreading like butter through clouds; rays of light separating the clouds that hung suspended like soft cotton linens recently laundered and hung to dry; a brief relay to the launch site; a gravel clearing in a flood plain; brown puddles pushed aside deliberately by the tires of vehicles anxious to be unloaded; embarking and a quick exercise to determine the effectiveness of the strokes; an introduction to the flood plain, its tidal effect evident in the species of emergent vegetation, fulsome and pliable, capable of hours of exposure and a similar tenure of submersion: Arrow arum, Sagittaria, Tussock sedge, Pickerel weed. Higher up on the mudflats, Yellow flag, a garden escape, but also interspersed were native Blue flag, speckled smudges of violet painted among the verdure of the near-shore. Passage over the round, flat leaves of the Yellow-lily; the sighting, with satisfaction, of the green-yellow spikes of the Golden club, an emergent water plant of special concern to botanists; the surprise to those initiates of the fragrant Sweet flag with its distinctive, rippling sword-shaped fronds thrusting from the water in thick green swaths.

Gliding up river with the rising tide, that insinuated itself into secretive channels and woodland streams murmuring downward from steep hemlock-strewn uplands punctuated by massive outcrops of granitic gneiss and schist marbled with quartz—sea water transformed by the pressure and heat of plate tectonics; white mute swans stoically declining an offer of bread; a Red-tailed hawk swooping from bank to bank; cottages appearing, huddled like multi-colored dominoes or in isolation, surrounded by terraces planted with Hollyhocks and red Bee-balm; a narrow passage over sandy shallow stream beds; the quickening waters and frothing riffles of near-dam habitat and then a landing below the fish ladder; sandwiches, fruits and granola bars; laughter, camaraderie, and then a dreamless nap, while the gossamer clouds galloped over the verdant hill and blinded the eyes when touching the sun; a shiner caught by stealth examined and then set free; a return: the tide slackens, holds its breath, and then exhales; the sky a benign panorama caressing water and hill; the sentient beings in their blue, yellow, and brown vessels, floating like bits of origami, amazed and made cognizant: there on a blue and silver disk tumbling silently in a black, light-studded universe, they were not alone.

A chance encounter led the group to the discovery not of breeding birds but of a species of special concern nonetheless: an immature hog nose snake lying underneath some cardboard trash. How this rattlesnake imitator did lunge and strike! Had one persisted, the brown diamond-patterned reptile would simply have lain on its back, white belly exposed, and feigned death, much like an opossum does when threatened.

Proceeding into an abandoned gravel pit, a blue cobalt hyphen in a black locust tree trilled: tweet, tweet, tweet, sit-sit-sit-tweet! The voice of an Indigo bunting. At the base of the gravel pit we observed a female Snapping turtle lumbering back to its moist hole somewhere in the maple swamp, having just deposited a clutch of eggs.

Descending along a sandy path into the depths of the flood plain, we heard the ascending, descending notes of Warbling vireos, the kurr-ree of Red-winged blackbirds, and chattering Common yellow throats. Suddenly, frenetic clucking came washing over all other sounds. To the amazement of the novices, it was explained that the sound was the noisome begging for food of the dozens of Great blue heron chicks.

The path, wide enough for a tractor to pass, opened up into a corn field above which Tree swallow glided and swooned. A scope was quickly placed on its tripod and to the wonderment of the pilgrims, a concentrated view of some of the 140 nests was brought close to the eye. Adults were observed feeding their young, an average of two, and as many as four to a nest. Fly by day, fly by night, some squawking, some clucking, an estimated 300 birds in the rookery participating in the rites of spring…

Fog and moisture clung to the tops of the oak trees the morning of the May Warbler Walk. The eight participants who gathered with anticipation in the parking lot of River Highlands State Park introduced themselves to one another and then began to slowly stalk along a railroad right of way. Walk-stop-proceed was the order of the march, all ears cocked to either side of the rail line, eyes scanning the canopies of wild cherry trees or looking down towards honeysuckle and barberry bushes. The sightings or songs of migrants began to accelerate. Rose-breasted grosbeak, Northern oriole, Oven-bird, Catbird, Towhee, all came in quick succession. And then charmingly, a hummingbird was found perching on a dead branch out in the open. Such a small and perfect expression of life! And then, another hummingbird was seen, also perching, as if to commemorate the spring, to let all and sundry notice them and become inculcated with their miniature beauty. Wood ducks flew by; a Great crested flycatcher clucked, heard but unseen from an oak treetop. House wren, Carolina wren, a Common yellowthroat were counted, yet the total number of warblers was slim: three. Not even a yellow warbler was heard. But the rail line divulged an uncommon sight: two box turtles nestled against the iron track, a bright orange male in his youthful prime and an older female whose plastron was quite scuffed up, revealing its traveling history.

On the return through the River Highlands, Worm-eating warblers were seen down slope towards the river, their preferred nesting area.

Finally, a side trip to the river flood plain gave the remaining “satyrs of spring” a close-up view of the Bald eagle nest on Gildersleeve Island with an adult and chick in evidence. Bristling vegetation made it a challenge to view the nest, but once discovered, reminded all that spring was proceeding and life continues, like an inexorable current that mankind might try to divert but never succeed in extinguishing.

Ladyslipper in bloom near railroad line / Box turtle on old railroad track. Photo by Dr. Michael Good /

Walking beneath a grove of White pine whose arms rested in bristling akimbo, we sought out not flowers but the trills of the Pine warbler, one of the first neo-tropical migrant bird species of spring. Once satisfied with the sight of these canopy-hugging, olive-green harbingers of a new and hopeful season, we directed our gaze downward towards the pine needle and cone covered forest floor. There were the Trillium nodding their crimson heads in modest obeisance. Wild oats, not yet flowering, were interspersed throughout the terrain. Then the speckled basal leaves of the Trout lily were noted; like the yawning mouths of circus clowns their clusters of yellow blossoms opened towards the earth. Walking uphill past the still waters of a trap rock reservoir we were led into a talus slope thick with the drooping pantaloons of Dutchman’s breeches. Bloodroot unfolded its swan-like leaves and a white flower emerged, its petals radiating gracefully. Someone pointed out the dark, voluptuous green leaves of the Wild leek, or “ramp”, an edible delicacy. Climbing higher, the talus slope offered Hepatica, Spring beauty and Rue anemone. Then a downward trek along crumbled basalt led to a virtual treasure of Blue cohosh, and more Hepatica, Trillium and Trout lily. Wood anemone flourished. Columbine, shy and not ready to flower, grew upwards between the rocks. When the reclusive, bell-shaped flowers of the Ginger plant were exposed, all hummed with satisfaction. A total of 24 species of wildflowers were counted on a bright and azure morning.

A subsequent trip to the top of Lamentation mountain revealed Pale and Yellow corydalis, Early saxifrage and the Orange falcate butterfly that danced around its host plant, Lyre-leaved rock cress.

Giuffrida Park reservoir in early morning / Columbine and Pale Corydalis in bloom

That February evening while the stars glistened like shed tears and winter held dominion over all, the temperature fell and ice thickened further on Salmon River Cove. Morning arrived, however, with a bright and promising yellow sunrise that rubbed the frost out of the treetops. Six participants in a quest for eagles gathered convivially for a trek to the promontory above the cove from where they hoped to see those soaring inspirations with their impressive wingspans.

They walked uphill over snow crunching like cornstarch, commenting on the natural history of glacial-influenced topography, on botany and on the changing face of Connecticut’s woodlands, due to insidious invasives.

Song Sparrows and Juncos were noted on the path as well as several species of woodpeckers. At the promontory, the group was treated to the tap-tapping of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. The frozen cove, looking like a grey bedsheet, was a view of quiet deception, for it was soon noted that a Bald eagle was perched in a large oak tree near the shore above the ice. And then the deer carcass was spied, surrounded by several crows but also by four immature eagles, each taking a turn at the bones of the unfortunate one. Some squabbling occurred. It was a majestic snapshot of nature and all were thrilled.

Bluebirds were seen on the return downward along the path in an open field with bunch grass-covered mounds of gravel. For several members of the group, this was equally as inspiring as the sight of the eagles. Eleven species of birds were seen.

The sun rose towards its zenith. Two young lovers cavorted and took pictures in the snow, and the more staid and world-weary merely sighed with satisfaction that the morning had gone well.

Preliminary results from the after-count gathering at the Cypress Restaurant: 73 species seen—not our lowest count total, but a ways off from our highest total. Seems like the better the weather, the lower the species count. Check back for more details to come.

What an incredible night for the swallow cruise last fall. After some very bad weather the day before, the storm cleared out for an evening of utter calm on the Connecticut River. We cruised up river to Selden Island for a view of our only Bald eagle that perched in its regular spot in a large conifer south of the Deep River marina. Captain Mark said all the Osprey had gone south, but a few minutes later, one came into view heading south as if it had missed the exit of its fellow Osprey. Not long after, the folks at the back of the boat got a good look at a Gyrfalcon. There were also several Great egrets, a few Great blue herons, some Double-crested cormorants, and oh the swallows!

The swallows began flying in before we arrived at Goose Island. They were everywhere, all around the boat, on the surface of the water, in the air above us, like we’d never seen before. They poured in and formed huge clouds that swooped up and down into and out of the Phragmites over and over, funneling together into dark masses and then spreading out in a haze of dots. Captain Mark estimated that they would end their aerial dance about 7:14. He was off by only 40 seconds, but there was one large cloud high in the air that just wasn’t ready to end their evening flight. As the sky darkened, they flew higher to the point where they were nearly impossible to find. Part of the cloud funneled in, but one group still lingered. We couldn’t stop watching until the last of them flew in, and with a cheer we headed back to the dock, marveling at what we had just witnessed.

Since this cruise was so phenomenal and not easily repeated, we are taking a break and will not be cruising in 2009.

That October morning four somnambulists (for sleep walkers they were, awakened to a dream state of scarlet and auburn hues and an atmosphere like that of etched glass) exhilarated with anticipation, struck out to find those elusive Freudian-like dreams personified – sparrows in the field. Stepping forth from an edging of maple and black birch trees into what had formerly been a bean and pepper truck farm the group discerned the choking filling of gravel that, like a brown and immutable tsunami, flowed over land that once was productive with green and ruby-colored vegetables. Yet waves of goldenrod, grey with seed, foamed and sparkled in the early morning dew of autumn like a spray of glistening sea-foam. Like elusive dreams that one tries to recover after awakening, the sparrows danced among the bunch grass. Up...down...up...down; the birds almost ricocheted from bush to bush, until finally sitting up, there was a Song sparrow; then another, and another, ad infinitum. Oh, that must have been a White throat; so difficult to see. Why must we imagine that which is right before our eyes? The Mourning doves gathered in the withered branches of a black locust tree seemed to mock us. But then in a wet thicket, more cooperatively, were a Swamp sparrow; a Yellow-rump warbler; and woodpeckers: Downy, Red-bellied and Flicker. Was that a Ruby-crowned kinglet? Yes.

Across from the former bean and pepper fields, in the Middletown gardens, quiet murmurings of more Song and White throated sparrows. Yet not the surprises or frenetic activity one expected. It remained for the open fields along side Miller road in Middlefield to reward the subconscious.

Several Palm warblers enlivened the drab branches of the red-osier dogwood with their yellow jackets and thumping tails. Despite the positioning of NO TRESPASSING signs (as if to say, “You can’t dream here!”) White crowned sparrows were seen, mature and juvenile alike, along the prickly thicket punctuating the rows of chopped corn stalks. Field sparrows also appeared, as if condescendingly. Returning along the road someone looked skyward … a Black vulture careened in a circle as if trying to avoid a sharp, flat cloud. An automobile ripped by, its preoccupied driver nothing but a blur like grease on a pane of glass, and the enchantment fell like a curtain. The crawl was over.

The almost October of blood-red and muted purples; shards of light, yellow like panes of broken stained glass; vanilla-colored tents, their flanks flaccid in the still morning atmosphere; the purposeful movements of the workmen grappling with tables, cloths and centerpieces; the notes of a flute pensively emanating towards the azure sky marbled with globe-shaped clouds seemingly gathered to listen; and the twelve human beings who stood in anticipation before the great estuary, Long Island Sound, a green and mobile deity, surprised at themselves and self-conscious, it seemed, the young and old alike, as they prepared for their discovery of near shore evolution.

At the rack line, the crunch underfoot of infinite numbers of gastropod shells; the ascent of a glacial moraine; and then a burst of Blue jays gathering to migrate, their namesake blue and white tuxedos brilliant in the pellucid October air; a secretive Winter wren briefly showed itself out of the bayberry bush; Yellow-rump warblers, immature, delved into the brisling embrace of the Eastern red cedar; gulls: Black-back, Ring bill, Herring flocked along the shore; then a Killdeer, almost invisible on the edge of the salt marsh; someone found a necklace of Channel whelk eggs, another fingered a black, pointed egg case of a Skate; an Osprey soared and underneath it the teetering flight of Northern harrier, the hawk intent on finding marsh rodents. Song sparrows rose and fell into the protective Rosa rogosa. The path led past monolithic boulders. Looking out over the sea, groups of Cormorants sped low over the green, curling waves while a flock of Sanderlings sped at an angle towards a distant sand bar. A Black-bellied plover stood statuesquely along a spit of pebbled shore; grey marsh silt clung to its feet.

The people saw these things and what they felt was visible in their faces, transformed in appearance from the dull masks put forth as they went about their daily chores into one of vivid animation. Then they hurried to the tents and their exhibitions. And the October day matured and sighed, and the sun followed its immutable path over the horizon, taking all inexorably with it.

Eleven boats set out from Harbor Park on a beautiful morning to paddle up the Mattabesset River for the first annual CT Water Trails Day on June 14. After leaving the highway behind, the river was tranquil and peaceful with only a few other paddlers and fishermen. The water had finally gone down from the long freshet to reveal banks covered in ferns and good old poison ivy. There was also evidence of beaver activity with two lodges and some cut trees, but none allowed themselves to be viewed on this warm morning. There were several sightings of Baltimore orioles. Unfortunately, there was Eurasian watermilfoil, an escaped aquarium plant that is considered invasive, in the open part of the marsh. Many thanks to Megan Hearne from the CT River Watershed Council for doing most of the work to organize this trip.

On a glistening late spring morning we stood on the soft, gritty banks of the Connecticut River with anticipation. There were five special focus areas of the Silvio O. Conte u.s. fish and Wildlife Refuge within a mile up- or down-river of us. Our canoe patiently lay at our feet, brown and lithesome. We decided to go downstream towards Pecausett Pond, a special fresh-water tidal marsh.

The canoe tracked well against the rising tide. The tape grass undulated beneath the surface of the water. We made a brief visit to Wilcox Island, a special focus area, to investigate Arisema dracontium, the Green Dragon plant. Endemic to flood plains wherever the habitat hasn’t been too disturbed, we sought it out among the poison ivy and ostrich fern, and there it was, a population just beginning to stick out its yellow adder’s tongue, coated with pollen.

Continuing, we drifted past urban monoliths: petroleum tank farms; a curvaceous suspension bridge, a gaunt and rusty railroad swing truss. Slipping quietly past recreational boaters and remnants of tidal vegetation, we finally entered the sandy, out-fall stream leading to Pecausett Pond.

Gothic silver maples arched over the water that flowed upstream with the rising tide. The banks were steep and smooth as if colored with brown Crayola crayons. Soon the great fans of ostrich fern monocultures appeared on either bank. A beaver lodge came into view. The green shadows separated and the bright yellow atmosphere surrounding Pecausett Pond came to the forefront. Pollen-filled tidal water flowed busily around the bristling tips of pickerel weed.

Arrow arum folded large succulent leaves at their sides; arrowhead weaved along the banks and flashed bright yellow-green, characteristically-shaped foliage. A Great blue heron arose squawking angrily, while an osprey's lethal shadow glided over unsuspecting fish. Immune to fish hawk claws because of their bulk and size, carp puckered their rigid lips and blew bubbles into the mud.

The dragonflies and damselflies danced their frenetic zigzag ballet over floating shields, smartweed, and yellow lilies. Beneath these the invasive milfoil bred prolifically, gluttonous feathery denizens of turbidity.

Shadows crossed the dark green waters; turkey vultures pirouetted above the tree tops; and sunlight spread over the surface of Pecausett Pond illuminating the minds of naturalists eager to learn about this tidal corner of the earth.

Two birders met me at the Brownstone Intermediate School parking lot at 6:30am. It was a sunny day with temperatures that reached the 70’s. The three of us started out with a quick stop at the Portland Fairgrounds where we saw a Solitary Sandpiper and Barn Swallows among other species. We then proceeded to Portland Reservoir where we saw a number of interesting species including: Green Heron, Purple Finch, Broad-winged Hawk, Veery, Baltimore Oriole, indigo Bunting, Eastern Kingbird, Belted kingfisher, and Scarlet tanager. We walked through the main part of the reservoir but also on the trails that lead around the opposite side of it. We had great views of several warbler species including: an Ovenbird perched on a low branch, Magnolia Warbler, Yellow Warbler, American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, and Pine Warblers. Other warblers included Northern Parula, Black-throated Green (heard) and Louisiana Waterthrush (heard). We concluded our trip with a stop at the power line crossing on Old Marlborough Turnpike. Hear we heard a Blue-winged Warbler but never got a good look at one. The Chestnut-sided Warblers with their ‘please, please, pleased to meet you’ calls were taunting us for some time. We finally got a look at them. They really seemed to stay low to the ground hiding in cover. Prairie Warblers were easier to spot as they perched on the tops of fairly short cedar trees. Our last big surprise came when we were looking in some bushes across the road. We had a splendid view of a Canada Warbler which was facing us with the sun reflecting off its breast and showing off its black necklace. Total species: 59

On a cool and overcast morning, six participants gathered for a sacred rite of spring: the walk along Field Road in search of neo-tropical migrants. Sharp eyes and hearing are requisite tools for neo-tropical bird watching. In spite of these skills evident in members of the party, only two warblers were identified, the arrival of the main body of migrants still a week or so away. Nevertheless, six neo-tropicals were spotted and also an interesting look at wood ducks, male and female, sitting high up in an oak tree.
On a side trip to the edge of the Connecticut River, opposite Gildersleeve Island, the party was able to see a Bald Eagle sitting on its nest. This nest has produced fledglings for two successive years.

Thirty-six birds total were counted, and who is not thrilled by the song of the first wood thrush, or first Rose-breasted Grosbeak of the season?

The timing was right on this year’s trip—nearly every possible species was in bloom, (although too early for Pale Corydalis or Columbine). Notable sights were the quantity of Red Trilliums in bloom, and all 3 colors of Round-Leaved Hepatica (Pink, Lavender, and Blue), plus Yellow Corydalis just beginning to bloom. In full blossom were Spring Beauty, Dutchman’s Britches, Wood Anemone, Trout Lily, Wild Ginger, Rue Anemone, Blue Cohosh, Early Saxifrage, Pussytoes, Spicebush, Bloodroot.

A Northern Waterthrush was heard in the same location as on most of our past flower trips. Pine warblers were singing in the pines along the reservoir. Orange-tip falcate butterflies were abundant on the high ridge.

(Machimoodus Park) Feb. 2, 2008.
Nine participants gathered together in the gravel parking lot of Machimoodus Park on a clear, sunny, and tolerably seasonable morning. Bluebirds, Juncos, Song and white-throated sparrows immediately made themselves known. As the party walked up hill along a logging road both native and invasive plants and trees were identified. Tree of Heaven were particularly dense in disturbed areas. Soon after reaching the promontory over looking Salmon River cove, two immature Bald eagles hovered low over the tree tops and fanned out at eye level before the awed group of birders. Three other eagles were also seen. A good selection of woodpeckers were present; Downy, Red-Belly, and Flicker. White-Breasted Nuthatch, and the elusive Brown Creeper made an appearance. Also notable were a squawking Raven, a cooperative Hermit Thrush, and a Mockingbird. Twenty-eight species were counted.

Notables mentioned at the Christmas Count soirée at the Cypress Restaurant: Pine warbler seen and photographed (below) by Clay Taylor; large numbers of robins, waxwings, and blackbirds; ducks were scarce but most still water was completely frozen; and all of the woodpeckers on our Count list were found, including one Red-Headed woodpecker (seen by the swamp off of Chestnut Hill Road, and near Route 16 in East Hampton).

October 13: A group of five birders was treated to a good selection of sparrows: song, field, savannah, swamp, white-throated, chipping, and mature and immature white-crowned. White-crowned sparrows were seen in greater numbers than on any past sparrow crawl. Also very numerous were Purple finches, especially in the Middletown Nature Garden on Randolph Road. Only one Yellow-rumped warbler was seen. 34 species were recorded, including a good selection of raptors, with Black vultures seen over the field near Lyman orchards, as well as a Peregrine falcon that flew over the Middletown Nature Garden. (Thanks Dave!)

Sept. 15th started out with pouring rain but by afternoon, the sun was shining brightly, but the front brought in a good breeze. The river was a little choppy as we set out, but there were some birds to be seen as we headed for the calmer waters of Hamburg Cove. As we entered the cove, an adult Bald Eagle crested the ridgeline for a great view of its white head and tail glistening in the sunlight. It hung around to be seen again heading out of the cove. We had some great close-up viewing of Double-crested Cormorants. There was also a Red-tailed hawk whose bright colors were emphasized by the good light. A Kingfisher followed us around the cove, and a couple Great Blue Herons were bookends on exiting the cove. We also saw Great egrets and some plovers.

As we made our way down the river to see the eagle’s nest on Nott Island, Captain Mark explained that this pair of Bald eagles had nested there successfully for 13 years, rebuilding their nest a few years ago when it fell out of the tree. This year, however, their nest was a victim of predators and the nestlings were found dead, one on the ground under the nest and one in the nest. There was a loud sigh from all on board.

We arrived for the swallows a little early. A few could be seen around the phragmites, and a few groups came in behind the boat as we waited, watching a gorgeous sunset. Suddenly, there was a huge flock almost the whole length of Goose Island. As we continued to watch, they came closer to us and to each other like a cloud of mosquitoes. As they bunched closer together, they began their descent into the phragmites. While they dove rapidly, there were so many that it took quite a while, and part of the group hesitated and swarmed a while longer and finally made its decision to go to bed and dove into the island for a good night’s sleep.

May 5: Seven individuals sought out tradition and neo-tropical avians when they gathered together in the parking lot of River Highland State Park in Cromwell. Proceeding along the railroad tracks lying adjacent to Field Road, bird watchers and naturalists reminded each other that as raw novices they once followed mentor David Titus down the same railroad right-of-ways. Warblers included: yellow rump, ovenbird, worm-eating, black and white, pine, prairie, and yellow. Species total was 44.

A special side trip, also a Titus specialty, took participants to the flood plain forest across from Gildersleeve Island where they were treated to the sight of a Bald Eagle in its nest tending to its progeny. Brown Thrashers in the shrubs were a pleasant gift. All thanked Dave for showing the way.

May 26: A diverse number of species greeted birders on a brilliantly-lighted morning in late May as they wound down a sandy pathway towards the Wangunk Meadow floodplain. Seen along the way were Northern Oriole, Black and white warbler, Warbling vireo, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher…

The culmination of the expedition was a glimpse of a Great Blue Heron rookery. At least 60 active nests were counted, as well as over 100 birds. Many nests had three and a few even had four chicks apiece. The parents were taking off and landing; there was much squabbling and gutteral clucks of the numerous chicks — an altogether lively and inspiring nursery display. Although mosquitoes delivered unpleasant calling cards, all were pleased and gratified after the trip.

This fossilized footprint of a small crocodilian was on a large slab of broken Jurassic red-mudstone on King’s Island Photo Fossil on Rock

June 2: Two canoes and four acolytes knelt at the altar of nature and came away blessed by discovery. Swift upper Connecticut River waters carried the four onto Kings Island, where a Mesozoic fossil was found, a type of small crocodilian track. Birds seen included Canada Goose, a Mallard with nine offspring, neo-tropicals such as Great Crested Flycatcher, and Warbling Vireos. Clouds and heat built up throughout the afternoon, but canoers were able to get off the river before the tempest burst.

June 10 and 11: A total of 5 groups took part in the Spring Census. It was a tough time (the BioBlitz was that same weekend), but we did record a total of 77 species and a total of 759 individual birds. Notables on this year’s list were two Bald Eagles soaring north along Saybrook Road near Aircraft Road. A single Whip-por-will along River Road was unusual only because we used to be able to hear several in one night. Warblers seem to be doing fair: we tallied 18 yellow warblers, 13 yellow-throats, and 12 prairie warblers. The champion on most lists would be starlings, and ours was no different. We had 72 followed by a close second for the robin family with 51. Cedar waxwing numbers were up with 31. These numbers might seem low, but we had 5 groups spending a combined total of 10 hours observing and traveling 28 miles by car and 4–5 by foot. The Saturday group also did Maromas section of Middletown in order to add to the BioBlitz totals. Additionally, we had Gray Fox, Fisher Cat, and a Banded Pennant dragonfly — rare in CT.

An eagle-viewing expedition to Echo Farm in East Haddam, January 20, led to a revealing exploration of the sloping woodlands enveloping the property. A brisk north wind marking the true beginning of winter spread through the hemlocks and white pines, where a number of wintering birds were seen: hermit thrush, downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpecker; dark-eyed junco, titmouse, black-capped chickadee. Bluebirds, white-throated, field, and song sparrows were seen in the brushy, grassy areas. From a promontory overlooking Salmon River Cove, several immature Bald Eagles appeared – brown smudges soaring against the gray background of the flood plain forest lying along the Connecticut River. Black ducks, mallards, mute swans and the inevitable gull species: herring, black-back and ring bill, floated on the surface of the lead-colored cove.

The birds and the weather during the Connecticut River Eagle Festival this year (17 and 18 Feb 07) were the best we have had in many years as the MAS volunteers served as guides at the eagle-viewing site across the river from the Goodspeed Opera House.

Saturday was clear and sunny with a bright blue sky, a mild breeze, and a temperature that was above the freezing point. We enjoyed the warmth of the sun and by mid-day we were shedding gloves and hats. Sunday, on the other hand, was totally different. It was overcast in the morning with an intense snow shower and a strong wind at noontime. The afternoon, however, was reasonably pleasant with some sunshine.

Birds were also the best we have had in years despite the fact that the river was frozen solid at our location. By the end of the weekend we tallied at least 4 adult Bald Eagles, 6-8 immature Bald Eagles, 1 immature Golden Eagle, 6-10 Red-tailed Hawks, 2 Red-shouldered Hawks, and 1 unidentified Accipiter.

A highlight on Saturday, besides the immature Golden Eagle that flew over the Goodspeed Opera House, was the adult Bald Eagle that flew upriver in lazy circles, gradually advancing northward – all without flapping its wings. As it turned we all had excellent views of all of its plumages, both dorsal and ventral. We easily saw its bright yellow legs and feet that were tucked under its white tail.

In addition, on Saturday, was a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks perched in a tree near the Goodspeed Opera House. One was facing us and the other was facing to the side, so we were able to see both the front and side plumages through the spotting telescope.

On Sunday we were treated to a pair of adult Bald Eagles that perched for more than an hour in a tree above the river’s edge, just past the south end of the airport runway. Occasionally one or both would fly around and land in a different tree. Alison wondered if these birds could be the pair that nested by Chapman Pond. As people came to our viewing site, all were delighted to see these adult eagles.

There were eight viewing sites along the river from Essex to Haddam. We had more than fifty visitors on both Saturday and Sunday at our site. The ten volunteers at the site were Mary Augustiny, Debbie and Ann Goodrich, Alison and Bill Guinness, Marcy Klattenberg, Joanne Luppi, Lorrie Martin, David Rathbun, and George Zepko.