“Sweet, sweet, sweet, ain’t I sweet!” sings the Yellow Warbler, and indeed it is sweet to hear this most vocal of warblers warming up the early spring season with song.
“Sweet, sweet, sweet, ain’t I sweet!” sings the Yellow Warbler, and indeed it is sweet to hear this most vocal of warblers warming up the early spring season with song.
Palm Warbler
Setophaga palmarum
Palm Warblers arrive earlier in April on their way to Canada. But some are still around so it’s not too late to look for them — and for their wagging tails.
April 27, 2022 — Support for a ban on horseshoe crab fishing is growing in the Connecticut General Assembly. But for the proposal to become law, Connecticut’s State Senators need to hear from you now. Please ask your state Senator to vote yes on HB 5140, An Act Concerning the Hand-Harvesting of Horseshoe Crabs in the State.
April 26, 2022 — The Daily Bird is alive and well, brought back to celebrate spring migration and to prepare us all for the 2022 Migration Madness Birdathon. We start with Northern Parula, written by Connecticut Audubon Executive Director Patrick Comins. Videos by Gilles Carter, a member of Connecticut Audubon’s Board of Directors.
April 26, 2022 — The Connecticut General Assembly is moving forward with a law to restrict the use of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can kill birds and beneficial insects. Please act now to tell your House member to vote yes.
April 9, 2022 — Osprey nesting season is underway! 2022 marks the 9th year of the Osprey Nation monitoring project. The number of nests in Connecticut has grown to more than 900. Ospreys are an incredible conservation success story but their growth means we need volunteers to help monitor nests. About 300 remain unspoken for. Can you help by being a volunteer Osprey Nation steward?
April 8, 2022 — One of the most important environmental bills in a generation has cleared a hurdle in the U.S. Senate. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act on Thursday, April 7, and is sending the bill to the full Senate for consideration. The bill would bring almost $12 million a year to Connecticut for the protection of birds and other wildlife.
March 25, 2022 — Make sure your Earth Day 2022 activities include Mountainfilm! If you’ve participated in our Mountainfilm online screenings before, you know how great they are. A dozen or so short movies with themes connected to Mountainfilm’s mission of using the power of film, art and ideas to inspire audiences to create a better world.
March 24, 2022 — Connecticut Audubon’s Habitat Steward Stefan Martin joins a group of other experts in an online discussion designed to help you figure out which plants on your property are invasive and what to do about them. It’s set for noon on Thursday, March 31.
March 21, 2022 — The number of birds in North America has fallen by about 30 percent over the past 50 years, and grassland birds have suffered particularly large losses. But something of a miracle is happening to grassland species on a very small scale — and on Staten Island, of all places. At the 2,000-acre Freshkills Park, formerly the site of the world’s largest landfill, 1,000 acres have been restored to grasslands. And grasslands birds are thriving. In just a short time Freshkills has become the home of 300-plus pairs of nesting Savannah Sparrows, 82 pairs of Grasshopper Sparrows, and 8 pairs of Sedge Wrens, plus Bobolinks and Eastern Meadowlarks.
March 16, 2022 — Connecticut Audubon’s Smith Richardson preserve in Westport is one of the few places in Connecticut where visitors can see a significant habitat restoration project while it is in progress. It’s well worth a trip. But whether you go or not, you can learn about the project first-hand from the volunteer who spearheaded much of the work. On Tuesday, March 22, at noon Charles Stebbins will tell the Smith Richardson story, during a Lunch and Learn program on Zoom hosted by the Apsetuck Land Trust.
March 15, 2022 — Connecticut Audubon’s Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center is presenting a free, interactive Zoom presentation on Thursday, April 7, at 6 p.m.: An evening with filmmaker Jacob Steinberg, producer and director of the PBS Nature program Season of the Osprey.
March 14, 2022 — Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds returns on Thursday, March 24, with a presentation on one of the more amazing bird success stories of the 21st century — the transformation of the world’s largest garbage dump into a grassland oasis teeming with Sedge Wrens, Grasshopper Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, and Eastern Meadowlarks.
March 2, 2020 — The shorebirds that pass through Connecticut during migration rely on horseshoe crab eggs for the energy to continue migrating. You can help them by supporting a bill in Hartford that might increase their numbers.
March 1, 2022 — Connecticut Audubon is supporting a bill in Hartford that would restrict the use of two pesticides that kill beneficial insects and other small creatures, many of which birds rely on for food. You can help get them passed.
February 25, 2022 — Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds turns to the arts! Join the fun on Thursday, March 3, 7 p.m., when artist and illustrator Jenny Kroik talks about birds, painting — and painting birds. You might know Jenny’s work from The New Yorker and other magazines. She teaches painting at the New York Botanical Garden and elsewhere.
February 11, 2022 — A proposal to create mountain biking trails in Salmon River State Forest could end up being a win-win for conservation and for responsible outdoor recreation. But for that to happen, we need you to please write to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and ask that provisions be made to protect the site’s natural resources.
February 4, 2022 — For the next Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds, we drill down from big-picture climate change issues to one habitat and four birds in Connecticut that are being affected by climate change today. Sam Apgar, a Ph.D., candidate at UConn, is the presenter and her talk is called “High Tide for Salt Marsh Birds.” Scroll to the bottom for a short video preview of Sam’s presentation.
January 14, 2022—A large section of Connecticut’s southeastern coast, encompassing ecologically rich tidal marshes, and shallow coves, bays and rivers, has been designated as the country’s 30th National Estuarine Research Reserve. The new reserve is the first in Connecticut. It covers about 52,000 acres in and around the lower Connecticut and Thames Rivers.
January 13, 2022 — This might be the most important presentation you see all year: Dr. Brooke Bateman, lead climate scientist for the National Audubon Society, will explain how Connecticut can protect bird habitat while also making huge strides toward its climate change goals. Dr. Bateman’s presentation — “Birds Are Telling Us It’s Time to Act on Climate Change” — will expand upon her article in the recent Connecticut State of the Birds Report, “Three Million Birds Are Gone. How Do We Bring Them Back?”