This morning at Hammonasset I saw and photographed what looks like one of the hybrid Little Blue Heron x Tricolored Herons that have been seen there the past two years. It flew into the back of the Meig's Point Pond by the footbridge near two Little Blue Herons. It stayed briefly before being chased away by one of the Little Blues. Here are two record shots of the bird showing the long bill, mottled look and dull yellowish legs, along with the white feathers on the underwing seen in flight.

Below is one of the Little Blue Herons in the park from a few days earlier for comparison.

and an adult Tricolored Heron taken at the same pond almost exactly a year ago - note slightly longer bill and white underwings.TRICOLORED HERON 12-05-1848876

and finally a shot of one of the suspected hybrids from last fall for comparison.TRICOLORED HERON 12-09-0652801

    It's finally here. The waves of new birds, some summer residents, some migrants on their way farther north, have started to hit the state in earnest. The prolonged period of easterly winds this past week has apparently kept the big waves from hitting us, and there were some disappointment from birders who lamented the "Dearth of Warblers", but the steady buildup of new birds is undeniable.

     Before I get to that, though, I continued to follow the loons in Niantic Bay, and the one I photographed for my previous post continued to linger and was joined by another Common Loon in full breeding plumage fairly close to shore. Several birders have reported seeing Common Loons in full breeding plumage on ponds, lakes and along the shore in Connecticut this year and wondered if this is unusually late for them, which I have been wondering myself. I can't recall ever seeing loons that looked like these in the state in more than 20 years of birding. The first is the original one, still with a few patches of gray feathers around the eyes.

and then the very sharp looking newcomer.

     Back to the slowly rising chorus of songs filling the woods. I'm lucky to live in an area where there are quite a few great places to bird in the spring and that's where I usually concentrate my efforts for the month of May. Tracts of Nehantic State Forest in Lyme and East Lyme, Rocky Neck and Devil's Hopyard State Parks and numerous town parks and land trust preserves, especially in Lyme and Salem offer lots of different habitat to cover, and an amazing variety of birds and creatures that live there.

Nehantic State Forest - Lyme

     Early arrivals like Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are already building their nests, and are easily spotted almost everywhere. I found two nests so far, thanks to the sparse leaf cover, although the nests are cleverly disguised with lichens that often blend seamlessly with the bark of the tree branches they are attached to. I watched the pair building the nest below, in Lyme, carefully camouflaging the outside with lichens. A couple days later it was nearly twice as high, with the bird barely visible inside.

     Another easily located bird is the Ovenbird, which sings loudly from the lower forest canopy. In almost every wooded area in Lyme, their piercing  "teacher, teacher, teacher" song can be heard every few hundred feet. One of the largest and least colorful of the warblers, Ovenbirds nest on the ground and are fairly easy to see and photograph because they are often found in the lower branches and walking on the ground. 

    Another low, loud warbler easy to hear but tougher to spot, the Northern Waterthrush sings loudly from wet, swampy areas. They, too lack the bright colors of most warblers and their song has a ventriloquial quality that doesn't easily reveal their location as they walk slowly along the waters edge. The one below was also photographed in Nehantic State Forest.

     Another prolific singer, usually found near woodland streams is the Winter Wren. A tiny bird with a very long, complex and musical song, they are easy to pick out when singing but are usually found close to their specific habitat, and are not that readily found.

I usually see, or more often hear them when hiking in Devil's Hopyard, and located a territorial pair on a hillside in there, although in a different spot than I have ever seen them before.

Some others from the past week include Worm-eating Warbler. American Redstart - male,

Blue-winged Warbler, Wood Thrush, and higher up in the trees, a Black-throated Green Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Broad-winged Hawk.      Not all the activity was in the woods, though. I came a cross a bunch of amazingly tame Barn Swallows that were building nests under a bridge. I slowly walked up to them and photographed them perched on the railings, collecting mud and twigs for their nests,

and taking the material to their nests below the bridge,

I tried in vain to get shots of them flying around, at times just a few feet from me, to my immense frustration. My annoyance was overcome when, on a few occasions, one would land fearlessly right next to me. Now that's something to sing about.

     Current total - 172 Connecticut Species.

     Things have been pretty busy the past two weeks, but it's only a taste of what the next month will bring.  The peak of migration is temptingly close, and every day now new arrivals are being reported. But here in eastern Connecticut, particularly in the woodlands, it's still pretty quiet. It always seems that a bit of patience is required here, before the waves of migrants building around the state explode suddenly across the eastern woodlands. This chilly spring seems to be a bit slower getting started than the past couple years as well.

     At Rocky Neck, things have quieted down in the Bride Brook marsh. Most of the Osprey have paired up and chosen nest sites. Many of the ducks have moved on, but a few still linger, mainly in the north end of the marsh. I have not seen the two sub-adult eagles lately, although there was a tattered looking juvenile flying over the park last week.

The egrets have also thinned out a bit, although both Great and Snowy Egrets still dot the salt marsh. So far no sign of the Little Blue Heron I've seen the past few springs in the park, but the Snowies are starting to morph into full breeding plumage.

Double-crested Cormorants continue to build along the shoreline, and large flocks can be seen flying overhead well inland as they head north. In many of the ponds in Niantic, flocks of cormorants gather to feed on the alewives that have made it to their spawning destinations. I spent an hour one day, patiently waiting for one to surface close enough to see the tiny crests on the head that they are named for. A few more shorebirds have arrived in coastal locations. The early nesting Killdeer are already on eggs, and seem to fly up from the strangest locations where they have chosen to nest (like the middle of a gravel parking lot), to distract innocent passers-by away. Noisy Willets have returned to marshes along the East River in Guilford, at Hammonasset, in Madison and Great Island in Old Lyme. Lesser Yellowlegs (pictured below) have joined their larger cousins both at Rocky Neck and Hammonasset.

Also at Hammonasset last week, I spent a morning on a wild bittern chase, waiting a couple hours to see an American Bittern that had been seen repeatedly in a small creek area across from the Nature Center. I couldn't locate it at first, but after getting tips from a couple different birders, I did get a brief look at it as it walked across a small pond before disappearing again into the reeds. Another photographer joined me and we spent a while talking, hoping it might pop into the open again. I was about to give up the quest, when we decided to walk back toward the creek to see if it had stealthed it's way back there. I trained my binoculars down the length of the creek but did not see it. Luckily my friend, sans binoculars, took the wider view and found it frozen at the edge of the creek, just a few feet below us. Scrambling to take off my teleconverter and back up a little, I was able to get some shots of it as it hunted and caught a fish. Again, a bit of patience was rewarded.

While taking a break from the bittern exercise, I took a detour to see the Purple Martins (top) and Tree Swallows (below) setting up shop near the Nature Center.

My main focus has been on migrant songbirds and I took several walks and drives through my favorite wooded spots in Lyme and East Haddam to look for warblers and other migrants that may have arrived. Towhees were the most often heard but seldom seen, except for the omnipresent Chipping Sparrow which could be seen and heard almost everywhere. In a few locations, a more musical version of the rapid fire Chipping Sparrow song signaled the presence of a Pine Warbler, one of the earliest arriving migrant warblers. In some locations, I found a few small pockets of warblers, including Yellow-rumped (the first this year as they have been unusually scarce this winter), Palm, a lone Ovenbird, Cerulean, Northern Parula and Blue-winged all foraging quietly, and a couple Louisiana Waterthrush singing sporadically. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were numerous, but overall the woods were still frustratingly quiet. Again, I'll have to be patient, as eventually the woods will come alive with their songs.

     Since the wave of migrant songbirds hasn't hit my home turf yet, I shifted focus and tried to work on some of the wintering seabirds that would soon be departing. At Hole-in-the-Wall Beach in Niantic, a few Horned Grebes remained, some nearing full breeding plumage. I draw some strange looks from beach goers, lying prone of the breakwater rocks waiting for birds to surface close by. Again, patience required. None of the grebes were bold enough to approach too close to shore but this nice looking one came the closest.

A few Red-breasted Mergansers also lingered, with the females showing the less dramatic, but more recent transformation into breeding plumage (a black ring around their eyes).

The most dramatic transformation goes to the Common Loon, which turns from drab winter gray to striking black and white and irridescent green. I found that one loon would make a few passes close to shore in the afternoon diving for crabs. The pictures were taken over the last two weeks and show some the final phase of this dramatic transformation.      I often assign myself specific subjects to work on each year, and sometimes I do not get around to it. Many years I've vowed to work on Common Loons in breeding plumage (one of the most beautiful birds in my opinion) but have never gotten to it. This is especially troubling since they are the closest of the loon species to reach, breeding in northern New England, yet I have many more photos of Pacific and Red-throated Loons which breed near the arctic. This year, they are again one of my targets, and hopefully I'll break through finally. 

As for my Big Year, I'm up to 150 species of birds in Connecticut, and that should starts growing in leaps and bounds in the next few weeks. I'll need to see just about every expected migrant and breeding bird species in the state, and still get lucky with some rarities if I'm going to reach 300 though.