2023 Annual Report: Year in Review

Narratives & Notes

Stratford Point

In January 2023, Connecticut Audubon became owner of the 28-acre Stratford Point preserve, our 22nd sanctuary. The sanctuary features grasslands, salt marsh, a north-facing beach, and a coastal trail offering panoramic water views. It’s a vital coastal habitat jutting into Long Island Sound and the Housatonic River estuary, 

Its location makes it a magnet for migratory songbirds. Birders have identified 300 species here, including more than 30 species of waterfowl, and rarities such as White-tailed Kite, Long-tailed Jaeger, Cory’s Shearwater, and Snowy Owl. It also houses a small Purple Martin colony. 

Once home to the Remington Arms Gun Club, the site underwent a significant cleanup in the early 2000s. Connecticut Audubon’s ownership ensures proper habitat management, building upon successful efforts at the Milford Point Coastal Center and H. Smith Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary in Westport. 

Stratford Point is also something of a conservation keystone. It’s across the mouth of the Housatonic River from Milford Point and the 840-acre Charles B. Wheeler Salt Marsh, and is close to the 699-acre Great Meadows salt marsh in Stratford. 

Stratford Point is also the site of significant coastal resilience research, conducted by Sacred Heart University and overseen by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.  
 
Stratford Point is a testament to your support for conservation, providing a safe haven for wildlife, a valuable resource for scientific exploration, and an unmatched location for birders and other visitors. 

Hartford’s Urban Bird Treaty

Connecticut Audubon strengthened its commitment to the state’s cities and its residents by taking a leading role in the official rededication of the Hartford Urban Bird Treaty, in May. 

At a get-together at Hartford’s Keney Park in May, a coalition of federal and city officials, alongside statewide and local conservation groups, reaffirmed their dedication to making the city a place where birds thrive in places that are welcoming for people to appreciate them.  

Originating in 1999 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Urban Bird Treaty program is a national network striving to enhance bird habitats in urban settings. A major goal is to encourage city residents to observe, learn about and enjoy birds and the natural environment. The program includes 30 cities. 

The rededicated plan for Hartford builds upon the foundation laid by the original 2011 Hartford Urban Bird Treaty. It creates a fresh “bird agenda” tailored to the city, in alignment with the core objectives of the Urban Bird Treaty program: 

• Protect, restore, and enhance urban habitats for birds.
  
• Reduce urban hazards to birds. 
• Educate and engage urban communities in bird conservation. 

The event in Keney Park highlighted the significance of urban areas as crucial stopover points for migrating birds. These spaces offer essential resting and feeding grounds, enabling birds to gather energy for migration and breeding. Connecticut Audubon’s 2018 Connecticut State of the Birds report identified Hartford as a key location for establishing additional high-quality bird habitats.  

Advocacy: Lights Out, Horseshoe Crabs, Shorebirds

Connecticut Audubon’s Coalition of grassroots activists helped convince the state of Connecticut to enact three new laws designed to provide better protection to vulnerable migratory birds: Lights Out, horseshoe crab protections, and a seabird and shorebird protection program. 

The new “Lights Out” law mandates that state-owned or leased buildings switch off unnecessary outdoor lights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.  
 
The law combined with the simple action by residents of turning lights out at home are small but important steps in the growing effort to reduce the number of birds that die each year when they fly into buildings — a number that reaches approximately 1 billion across North America.  

Connecticut Audubon members sent hundreds of emails in favor of the law to their elected representatives, and also responded enthusiastically to “lights out” alerts during peak migration. 
 
The horseshoe crab law bans commercial fishing for horseshoe crabs in Connecticut. In addition to the obvious benefits to the horseshoe crabs themselves, the law will also help birds such as Red Knots and Semipalmated Sandpipers, which rely on horseshoe crab eggs as a vital food source during migration. Both of those species have seen dramatic population declines ralted at least in part to a paucity of horseshoe crab eggs to eat. 
 
The seabird and shorebird protection program empowers the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to identify birds in need of special protection and create safe zones on public beaches from March to September.  
 
These designated safe areas, designed to protect beach-nesting birds such as Piping Plovers, American Oystercatchers, Least Terns, and Common Terns, are crucial for their safety. 

Connecticut Audubon has played a leading role in protecting these birds, especially at the Milford Point Coastal Center, where diligent stewardship led to a record year for nesting Piping Plovers in 2023. 
 
These laws show that good things happen when Connecticut Audubon members speak out. They not only provide hope for Connecticut’s environment but also demonstrate the potential for preserving our birds and maintaining the natural balance of our state for generations to come. 

Coastal Waterbirds: make way for fledglings

The 2023 nesting season at Milford Point was not just a successful one for federally-threatened Piping Plovers. It was record-breaking. Out on the sandbar, 16 nesting pairs laid 64 eggs; 30 chicks fledged.

Conservation biologists estimate that for the population of these small, vulnerable birds to increase across their range, they would need to average 1.5 fledged birds per nest.

At Milford Point, the success rate was 25% better — 1.9 fledglings per nest.

The reasons are simple: member contributions along with funding from the Jeniam Foundation supported the work of three coastal rangers, who were on the beach daily from April into October. Those rangers worked closely with staff and volunteers from the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds.

American Oystercatcher fledglings also had a record year at Milford Point, although the total numbers were much lower. Three nests produced seven fledglings. By comparison, the previous four years resulted in only six fledglings combined.

The news was not as good for Least Terns. Only four chicks fledged from a colony that, at its peak, had as many as 170 nests.

Predators including night-herons, rainy weather, a high number of visitors on the sandbar and, at a particularly sensitive time for the colony, an off-leash German shepherd and an illegal ATV all likely contributed to the poor year.

Osprey Nation

2023 marked Osprey Nation’s 10th year. It is without a doubt Connecticut’s pre-eminent citizen science project, with over 1,000 people collaborating to find, map, and collect data on the state’s Osprey population.

The goal of Osprey Nation is to create a long-term record of data that will give the conservation community a better understanding of the health of Connecticut’s Osprey population. Ospreys are abundant and thriving now—with 684 active nests in 2023 and a minimum of 877 fledglings (a 145% increase since the start of the project), we estimate that there were at least 2,250 Ospreys in the state at the end of the summer.

Fifty years ago, there were only 10 nests.

The purpose of Osprey Nation is to track the population year-by-year so that if it starts to fall, conservationists will know right away and will be able to look for causes and solutions.

This is citizen science at its best. Thank you to the 1,000-plus Osprey Nation stewards, and to Connecticut Audubon members, whose contributions have enabled it to continue.

*observed/estimated