Field Trip – River Road, Kent “Travels Along a ‘Riparian Woodland Corridor’” – Steve Broker

NOTE: THIS IS A DATE CHANGE FROM THE YEARBOOK.  MAY 19 CHANGED TO MAY 11

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 diversity of species to be found in this woodland bordering the Housatonic River is remarkable and 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 northwestern Connecticut are seen here, including Acadian and Least Flycatchers; Yellow-throated and Blue-headed Vireos; Winter Wren; and Cerulean, Golden-winged, and Worm-eating Warblers. We bird River Road by car odometer with territorial birds staked out beforehand. In advance of the trip, be sure to read Chapter 10 “River Road, Kent” in Connecticut Birding Guide (Devine & Smith, 1996) and/or the “River Road” section in Birding in Connecticut (Gallo, 2018). Bring your Sibley Guide to Trees.  We meet in Kent at the old train station by 7:30 A.M.. The train station is several hundred yards north of the intersection of Routes 7 & 341, on Route 7 (Main Street), east side of the road.

LS.Broker@cox.net  203-747-6843