Speaking of Cold Fronts...
By Patrick Comins on September 16, 2012, 9:45am
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories.
In the first column we talked about how birds use the northerly winds behind cold fronts to gain ground speed and effectively shorten their migratory journeys. I neglected to mention that we had a real live September cold front passing through this weekend, which passed through Saturday morning. You can see by this wind map that we now have northwest winds: http://hint.fm/wind/
This would be a great weekend to get out to a local hawk-watch spot; Saturday was great and Sunday should be at least as good. Stop by Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven (entrance fee charged for non-New Haven Residents, but you can sometimes talk your way in by saying you're there to see hawks). On Saturday, good numbers of Sharp-shinned Hawks, a few American Kestrels and at least one Merlin, Bald Eagle and Osprey each. The butterflying was good as well. Boothe Memorial Park in Stratford or Quaker Ridge at the Audubon Center in Greenwich are two more places where you could be in for a good show. Last year, those three locations tallied over 40,000 raptors passing overhead! Included in those totals were nearly 250 Peregrine Falcons, over 300 Bald Eagles, over 1,500 Osprey, over 20,000 Broad-winged Hawks and 15 Golden Eagles! A list of hawk watching sites in Connecticut can be found here: http://www.hawkcount.org/sitesel.php?country=USA&stateprov=Connecticut (note, not all sites are covered regularly, if you want some help starting out, pick one of the larger sites with more hours of coverage tallied).
These fronts bring more than just raptors. If NW winds continue overnight Satuday, places like the Hot Corner at Bluff Point State Park in Groton or the Salt Meadow Unit of the McKinney NWR in Westbrook will likely be hopping with warblers and other songbirds early tomorrow morning. These birds travel at night to avoid the raptors who are also on the move. As daylight approaches and they find themselves near the coast, they can concentrate in certain areas as they try to avoid being blown out over the open water of the Long Island Sound. Bluff Point in particular can host 1,000s or even more than 10,000 birds passing through in just a few short early morning hours. Sunday could be a great day for such so-called migrant traps.
This year, there is an invasion underway from the north, and the cold front likely brought some more our way, so now is a good time to keep your feeders full. So-called irruptive migrants, i.e. birds that don't head south every year, but only when food supplies to the north fail, are coming down in numbers. Purple Finches are both passing through overhead and visiting feeders around the state, as are Red-breasted Nuthatches. There have already been a few Pine Siskins (cousins of the American Goldfinch) and even some Red Crossbills spotted in Connecticut. Crossbills are birds that are specialized for feeding on seeds found in pine cones and their crossed bills help them pry open the cones to get at the nutritious seeds inside. A decade can go by without any reports of them in Connecticut, but in some years they can be everywhere. This year dozens have been reported flying over and hopefully some will stick around and visit our cone trees. Stands of pines, spruces or hemlocks that are laden with cones are the best place to look for them, and the black pine stands at Hammonasset Beach State Park can be a good spot in invasion years. This weekend could also herald the return of some of our favorite winter feeder birds, such as Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows, both of whose numbers will build through the fall. It is looking like we may have a terrific fall and winter for seed-eating birds, so keep your feeders full!
During the week, the weather could make it interesting for birds and other things that can get blown off course. A frontal system will move through Tuesday and Wednesday. Strong southerly winds ahead of the system could bring up southern vagrants and rain and winds could put down uncommon shorebirds. More on that to follow as the situation develops.
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories.
