Nest Boxes for New Canaan’s Birds

Ready to get to work putting up nest boxes, from left, Chris Schipper, Chair New Canaan Conservation Commission; Newell Cotton, a member of the Friends of Bristow Park; Marty McLaughlin, Conservation Commissioner; Sarah Hering, manager of the Friends of Bristow Park; and Connecticut Audubon’s Stefan Martin and Milan Bull.

In the Sanctuaries …

March 24, 2021 — Breeding season is underway and birds needs places to nest, so Connecticut Audubon staff spent this morning in New Canaan helping volunteers put up nest boxes at the Bristow Bird Sanctuary.

The work is part of a series of habitat improvements that the New Canaan Conservation Commission, with the help of Connecticut Audubon, is planning at the 17-acre sanctuary.

In November, Connecticut Audubon Executive Director Patrick Comins and habitat steward Stefan Martin began work on a plan for replacing invasive plants with native shrubs and trees that birds prefer; and for placing nest boxes in likely locations throughout the wooded sanctuary.

Today, Milan Bull, Connecticut Audubon’s senior director of science and conservation, worked with Stefan and four New Canaan volunteers to put up about two dozen boxes.

The boxes and holes are for birds of various sizes, including Barred Owl and Eastern Screech-Owl, Wood Duck, Carolina and House Wrens, Black-capped Chickadee, and Great-crested Flycatcher.

The New Canaan Bird Protective Society created the Bristow Sanctuary in 1924, with the help of Mabel Osgood Wright, Connecticut Audubon’s founder and a national leader in bird conservation. Ten years earlier, Wright created Birdcraft Sanctuary in Fairfield. You can read the story of the revived partnership between New Canaan and Connecticut Audubon here.