Blog – 2018
Monday, November 27th, 2023November 27, 2023—During this gray, dark time of year, the flame-colored leaves we’ve enjoyed so much in the last month or so turn brown and drop onto the cold ground. But an often overlooked shrub lets us know that there is yet life and spirit in the landscape—if we would just take the time to notice.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Homegrown Habitat, November 2023: Northern Bayberry
Monday, November 20th, 2023November 20, 2023—Ospreys are thriving in Connecticut, and interest in these beautiful, fish-eating raptors is thriving as well. This was the 10th year of Connecticut Audubon’s Osprey Nation monitoring program. The volunteer Osprey nest stewards found and mapped 688 active nests. By the end of the season, 881 baby Ospreys had fledged — the most ever recorded by the project.
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2023November 14, 2023—By any account, it was a good day of mid-October birding at the Coastal Center for Chris Unsworth: 50 species and almost 600 individual birds. But it was one bird that he didn’t see—or rather, didn’t see alive—that made the day special.
Posted in Blog - 2018, News | Comments Off on “The mystique of birding” — a leg band found at Milford Point reveals the oldest known Black-bellied Plover in the Western Hemisphere
Wednesday, November 1st, 2023November 1, 2023 — Please join us on Saturday, November 4, for the Connecticut Audubon Society’s annual meeting. It’s a special event this year to mark our 125th anniversary. The meeting will be held at the Fairfield Museum and History Center, in the heart of the neighborhood where Connecticut Audubon was founded and the first meetings were held.
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Monday, October 23rd, 2023October 23, 2023—Blueberries are bird-friendly native plants with autumn flair. Their delicious summer fruit is packed with vitamins and antioxidants; all sorts of health benefits are attributed to them. Their subtle spring flowers, small white and pink bells, are lovely to look at and entice pollinators. But blueberries become showstoppers in fall, with foliage that turns brilliant red, orange, and purple. In winter their beautifully textured bark ensures the blueberry’s status as a garden plant with four-season interest.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Homegrown Habitat, October 2023: Highbush Blueberry
Thursday, October 5th, 2023October 5, 2023—United Illuminating is proposing to rebuild transmission lines along the 25 miles of the Metro North Railroad corridor between Fairfield and West Haven. Transmission lines pose a hazard to birds of all kinds. Between 8 and 57 million birds are killed by transmission lines in the U.S. each year.
Posted in Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Connecticut Audubon Society statement on the United Illuminating Railroad Transmission Line Upgrade Project
Saturday, September 30th, 2023September 30, 2023 — An estimated 930,000 birds will be migrating over and through Connecticut tonight, 1.1 million tomorrow night, and and 570,000 Monday night. That means we’re in for three pretty good days of birding. But it also means that a lot of birds are at risk of crashing into things. Please help protect migrating birds by turning your lights out each of the next three nights.
Posted in Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Lights Out alerts for Saturday, Sunday and Monday
Thursday, September 28th, 2023September 28, 2023 — Two Homegrown Habitat readers who live on opposite sides of the Connecticir River—Old Lyme and Old Saybrook—wrote this week seeking practical advice on what and where to plant. We thought you might find Sarah Middeleer’s advice to be useful.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Homegrown Habitat mail: planting advice
Wednesday, September 27th, 2023September 27, 2023 — Tonight is a “medium” alert night for bird migration. But “medium” is not nothing; 424,000 birds will be passing over and through Connecticut, as this map produced by Colorado State University’s Aeroeco lab shows. So it’s a good night to help protect those migrating birds by turning out exterior lights
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Friday, August 25th, 2023August 25, 2023 — For the fourth time in six years, a Roseate Spoonbill is visiting Connecticut.
Posted in Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Rare bird alert: Once again, a Roseate Spoonbill visits Connecticut and the Milford Point Coastal Center
Monday, September 25th, 2023Asters and goldenrods: These two standouts of the late-summer and autumn landscape give new meaning to the oft-repeated garden design phrase “four-season interest,” but from the point of view of our treasured pollinators and songbirds.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on September 2023: Asters
Monday, August 28th, 2023August 28, 2023 — The Roseate Spoonbill that arrived at Connecticut Audubon’s Milford Point Coastal Center on Thursday, August 24, has not caused quite the elation among birders as the spoonbill that spent three weeks in the area in 2018. Still, this year’s visitor is not without its fans. About 30 people climbed the Coastal Center’s observation tower late in the afternoon on Sunday, August 27, to see it in the Charles Wheeler Salt Marsh.
Posted in Blog - 2018, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Roseate Spoonbill 2023: a selection of photos
Monday, August 21st, 2023August 21, 2023 — The dynamic duo of yellow goldenrods and purple asters is one of the glories of the late-summer landscape. These members of the aster family often grow near one another, for good reason – bees, who benefit greatly from both genera, are attracted to the combination of purple and gold. Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, says of goldenrod and asters, “Their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whole meadow, a beacon for bees. Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than if they were growing alone.”
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on August 2023: Goldenrods (with asters to follow in September)
Thursday, August 10th, 2023August 10, 2023 — It has been a good summer for bird conservation, and that has caught the attention of editors and reporters throughout Connecticut.
Posted in Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Catch up with these conservation stories in the Connecticut news media
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023August 2, 2023 — Responding to a question about what to plant on a specific property, Homegrown Habitat author Sarah Middeleer instead responded with advice that almost any homeowner can use.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Homegrown Habitat Mail: Great, basic advice on planting for the benefit of birds and pollinators
Monday, July 31st, 2023July 31, 2023 — One of the great things about the bird world is that you just never know. You never know, for example, when a species that hasn’t nested in the state in 20 or 30 years will suddenly settle down and raise a family on your sanctuary, which is what a pair of Northern Bobwhite did this year at Connecticut Audubon’s Bafflin Preserve in Pomfret.
Posted in Blog - 2018, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Northern Bobwhite joins the list of breeding birds at the Bafflin Preserve in Pomfret. But for this grassland species, there’s more to the story
Monday, July 24th, 2023Late summer and early fall are great times to go birding at the Milford Point Coastal Center. But because Milford Point is first and foremost a nature preserve, we ask that you enjoy the birds without disturbing them, especially on the sand spit.
Posted in Blog - 2018 | Comments Off on Tips to help protect shorebirds if you visit Milford Point
Monday, July 24th, 2023July 24, 2023 — This looks like a record year for Piping Plovers at Milford Point. Sixteen pairs of this federally-threatened species nested along the sandbar in 2023. As of today, 25 young birds have fledged and six others are preparing to.
Posted in Blog - 2018, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Combine tough little birds and diligent conservation with a bit of luck, and the result is a record year for threatened Piping Plovers at Milford Point
Monday, July 17th, 2023July 17, 2023 — Young Purple Martins make a squawking noise that sounds like what the movies imagine a pterodactyl might sound like — harsh, insistent, un-birdlike — only not as loud That’s how some of the nestlings at the Milford Point Coastal Center were expressing themselves the other morning during the center’s annual Purple Martin banding session.
Posted in Blog - 2018, Uncategorized | Comments Off on At a stronghold for Purple Martins, volunteers and staff band 89 baby birds
Monday, July 17th, 2023July 17, 2023 — In July and August the native meadow flowers start to shine. A standout is blazing star (Liatris spicata), also known as gayfeather due to its feathery flower heads. Its showy purple flowers appear on stalks two to four feet, but occasionally to six-feet high, blooming progressively from the top down.
Posted in Bird Garden, Blog - 2018, Uncategorized | Comments Off on July 2023: Blazing star