Fall Migration Festivals
By Patrick Comins on September 14, 2012, 8:30pm
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Fall is an exciting time for birding in Connecticut. From July onwards (Fall migration for shorebirds actually starts as early as late June), birders check the forecast for each passing cold front. This is because birds ride the northerly winds behind fronts to increase their ground speed. If you can fly 20 mph and have a 10 mph tailwind, you're traveling at 30 mph.
September is the most exciting month in Fall migration. A night with NW winds means that places like the hot corner at Bluff Point State Park in Groton or the Salt Meadow Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Westbrook will be hopping with warblers and other birds at first light, and in the case of Bluff Point it can mean 1,000's of those birds will pass through in the course of just a few early morning hours. If those winds continue into the daylight hours, it means that birders will be flocking to places like Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven or Quaker Ridge at the Audubon Center in Greenwich to see hawks and other raptors passing overhead, sometimes thousands of them in a day. Included in those birds can be Bald or Golden Eagles, Northern Harriers, Peregrine Falcons and their smaller cousins Merlins and American Kestrels and boiling kettles of Broad-winged Hawks. The right conditions can also mean that large numbers of migrating butterflies, such as Monarchs or American ladies, or dragonflies such as the common green darner or black saddlebags will be moving though the state.
September is also time to celebrate this phenomenon with migration festivals. Two such events are occurring the weekend of September 22nd and 23rd, with the Audubon Greenwich Hawkwatch Weekend (both days) and the Lighthouse Point Migration festival on Sunday the 23rd in New Haven. While the best days to visit these spots are after the passage of a cold front, these festivals are a great way to learn about these spots and see these birds no matter what the weather brings. Both festivals offer live birds of prey shows, and many other activities sure to entertain whether there are any wild migrants to observe or not.
For more information on the Lighthouse Point Migration Festival, please see: http://www.newhavenbirdclub.org/mfs.pdf
And for more information on Greenwich Hawkwatch Weekend, please see:http://greenwich.audubon.org/hawkwatch-festival-green-bazaar
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