A little of this, a little of that

Flowers of the Red Maple in front of our building - spring marches on!!

Extracurricular activity of the week:
Lynn and Nate completed construction of a nest box for American Kestrel, Falco sparverius, and installed the box in a Pin Oak near the place we've observed Kestrels in past years.


Brand new Kestrel box on campus - Nate had to climb the tree - no assistance from a bucket truck here, just a small ladder to reach the lower branches.


Lynn will blog in more detail about this later - I'll be sure to include the link to her blog when she does. In the meantime, to read more about providing nest boxes for Kestrels you can follow this link to the Northeast Connecticut Kestrel Project. Here's Lynn's page on Kestrels!

Bird list for the week of April 4 - 8, 2011:

Wild Turkey
Canada Goose
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Sharp-shinned Hawk

Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Downy Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
American Crow
Blue Jay
Northern Mockingbird

American Robin
European Starling
Black-capped Chickadee
Northern Cardinal
Dark-eyed Junco

Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
American Goldfinch
House Finch
Brown-headed Cowbird

House Sparrow

26 species for campus, plus...


Sue and Karen (my sister) birding at the West Haven shore

Lunchtime coastal birding
Wednesday we popped over to the coast to see what we could see:

Horned Grebe, Podiceps auritus - this bird spends the whole winter off our coasts, in a simple black and white color scheme, but now they've acquired fresh plumage for the breeding season, (the bird's name is a link to Cornell's Birds of North America online where you can see some images - I have to change the color scheme for links, they're barely visible)
Canada Goose, Branta canadensis
Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos
Black Duck, Anas rubripes
American Wigeon, Anas americana - in beautiful breeding plumage

Herring Gull, Larus argentatus
Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus
Ring-billed Gull, Larus delawarensis
Bonaparte's Gull, Chroicocephalus philadelphia - their molt still in transition from winter's drab "basic plumage" to summer's black-headed "alternate plumage" - link to Cornell's images for this bird - though you can usually find better images in a google search
Rock Pigeon, Columba livia

Blue Jay, Cyanocitta cristata
American Crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos
Fish Crow, Corvus ossifragus - the voice of this crow may help you distinguish it from the American Crow - listen to this recording from Xeno-canto
American Robin, Turdus migratorius
European Starling, Sturnus vulgaris

Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis
Common Grackle, Quiscalus quiscula
House Sparrow, Passer domesticus