Breeding Birds

June is definitely all about breeding birds.  As Lynn mentioned earlier, most species we see with their "feet on the ground" here are breeding birds.  The campus grounds has abundant habitat for those birds adapted to suburban survival - with shrubs, lawns, mature trees and some wild and weedy areas being our prevalent habitat types.

I'm always surprised when I find our Wood Thrush still singing away on its territory - a small patch of hardwoods with a fairly open forest floor and adjacent dense tangles of invasive vines and shrubs.  Recent research on the habitat needs of this species indicates that although it is a fairly common breeder in small forest fragments such as ours, its breeding success rate is higher when it occupies larger forested areas.

Above, one of the pups from our coyote family - a typical coyote sighting for most Connecticut residents.

And here's a different pup from the family, taking the sun about 3 meters from a parking area - a typical coyote sighting for us at West Campus

With Mama Coyote and four pups around, it's no wonder we see very little of our turkey flock these days, and the resident Red-tailed Hawks are actively hunting on campus, making the squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits not as visible as they sometimes are.

So, Lynn and I both had time to get out birding this week, and here's the result of our modest effort:
Bird list for the week of June 25-29, 2012:
Herring Gull
Killdeer
Red-tailed Hawk
Osprey
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
European Starling
10. American Robin
Wood Thrush
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Yellow Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Barn Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
20. Cedar Waxwing
House Wren
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Northern Cardinal
Song Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
American Goldfinch
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
30. House Sparrow

Back to Birds

After months of planning, the 27th annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections finally took place at the Omni Hotel in New Haven, CT.  The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History was the host this year and much of our collections staff was involved in the planning and hosting of this amazing event.  It went off great!  Now that it's over.... we can finally get back to the birds.

Sue and I have had almost no time for lunch time walks or keeping our bird board up to date.  The first thing we did on Tuesday morning (after the meeting), was wipe down the birds to start over fresh.  The weather's been jumping around with a heat wave of 3 consecutive days over 90 degrees (that's what a heat wave technically is) to overnight lows last night of somewhere near 60.  Everyone on campus at this time of year are likely breeders.  Of course some are just passing over.

Great Egret
Red-tailed Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Killdeer
Herring Gull
Common Flicker
Mourning Dove
Blue Jay
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Gray Catbird
American Robin
Yellow Warbler
Cedar Waxwing
Tufted Titmouse
European Starling
Song Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch
House Finch
House Sparrow
Common Grackle


Baby Robin- photo by Lynn Jones



24 species total for one week.  Gray Catbirds have been seen flying into the Pussy Willow bushes to pluck off some berries and then fly back to their hidden nests and young.  Baby American Robins have been spotted all around campus waiting for their parents to bring them snacks.