River Road, Kent “Travels along a riparian woodland corridor”

The New Haven Bird Club traveled to River Road in May 1991 and documented the first nesting of Yellow-throated Warbler in Connecticut. Subsequent NHBC trips to River Road have produced a nice variety of Northwestern Connecticut nesting species.  We return this year to River Road at the peak of the spring migration.  In his 1978 publication, 25 Birding Areas in Connecticut, Noble Proctor wrote, “It is readily apparent that on the right day this area can contend with any inland area for spectacular birding.”  The remarkable diversity of species to be found in this woodland bordering the Housatonic River includes ducks, herons, vultures, diurnal raptors, sandpipers, cuckoos, hummingbirds, kingfishers, flycatchers, vireos, swallows, wrens, gnatcatchers, thrushes, waxwings, wood-warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles.  Many specialty breeders in north- western Connecticut are seen here, including Acadian and Least Flycatchers, Yellow-throated and Blue-headed  Vireos,  Winter   Wren,  and  Cerulean,  Golden-winged  (rare), and Worm-eating Warblers.  We bird River Road by car odometer with territorial birds staked out beforehand. Prior to the trip, try to read Chapter 10: River Road, Kent in Connecticut Birding Guide (Devine & Smith. 1996).  Bring your Sibley Guide to Trees if you have a copy. Meet at the Amity Shopping Center at 112 Amity Road, New Haven at 7:00 am.  The carpool leaves no later than 7:15 am.  Travel is by Routes 63, 67, and 7.  We arrive in Kent at the old train station by 8:30 am.  The train station is several hundred yards north of the intersection of Routes 7 & 341, on Route 7 (Main Street), the east side of the road.  Leader:  Steve Broker:  203.272.5192 (cell:  203.747.6843), ls.broker@cox.net.