Annual Report 2022: Year In Review

Piping Plovers

From April through August in 2022, Connecticut Audubon’s field staff spent literally every day on the sandbar that juts off the beach at Milford Point. Piping Plovers, a federally threatened species, were nesting there. The staff’s job was to note their arrivals, find and protect nests, and talk to visitors about being careful as they walked.

They were able to do all that only because your membership and donations underwrote their work.

The result was that in 2022, Piping Plovers thrived at Milford Point.

Thirteen pairs nested on the sandbar. Twenty one baby birds fledged and survived to migrate south.

Those seem like small numbers. But the work in Connecticut has larger meaning. When you look at the number of fledglings per nest, almost no state in the bird’s coastal range does a better job of protecting Piping Plovers than Connecticut. And Milford Point is one of the most important nesting areas in the state.

That’s what your membership achieved this year — bird protection where it matters: in the habitat of one of the state’s most vulnerable species.

Purple Martins

It was only a few years ago that Purple Martins were listed as a threatened species in Connecticut. No longer. The number of colonies where they nest has increased,and so has the birds’ population

Thanks to volunteers and staff, Connecticut Audubon now has Purple Martin colonies at the Milford Point Coastal Center, Deer Pond Farm in Sherman, and the Center at Pomfret.

A new colony is being established at the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center in Old Lyme and also at Trail Wood in Hampton. Staff and volunteers for our EcoTravel office monitor and maintain a colony in Old Saybrook.

The result is that statewide, Purple Martins have been successful enough to allow the state to remove them from the list of threatened species in Connecticut.

Sanctuaries

A surefire way to tell if a habitat improvement project is succeeding is to look at the birds.

Five years ago, Connecticut Audubon identified 10 acres in the middle of the 24x-acre Chaney Preserve in Montville as a place that might be suitable for shrub-nesting birds. With membership support, a restoration project began.

Throughout Connecticut, shrub-nesting birds are in the most trouble. Populations of Blue-winged Warbler, Eastern Towhee, Indigo Bunting, Field Sparrow, White-eyed Vireo and other species have fallen by a couple of percentage points per year for 50 years. That’s an unsustainable drop.

But by 2022, with the new shrub habitat at the Chaney Preserve barely 5 years old, the birds moved in and gave every sign that they were nesting. Indigo Buntings, Field Sparrows and Blue-winged Warblers singing on territory. Eight Eastern Towhees. And a White-eyed Vireo carrying food to feed its babies.

That’s a great result. Combine it with projects in Pomfret, Goshen Old Lyme, Milford, Westport, Fairfield, Sherman, Goshen and elsewhere — and it adds up to membership support making a tangible difference for the Connecticut birds that need it the most.

National Estuarine Research Reserve

In January 2022, 52,000 acres of coastal areas in southeastern Connecticut were formally designated by the U.S. Department of Commerce as the nation’s 30th National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The reserve provides a focus to keep the estuary ecologically healthy; to serve as a site for research to aid conservation; to provide information to local officials and others who make decisions affecting the area; and to provide outdoor education for students.

Connecticut Audubon volunteers and staff were instrumental in helping to plan for the new reserve. They also worked closely with the Pew Charitable Trust’s Conserving Marine Life in the U.S. project to build public support for the reserve.

Advocacy

Two important changes beneficial to birds happened in Connecticut over the past year: strict limits were placed on fishing for horseshoe crabs, and use of a dangerous pesticide was heavily restricted.

Connecticut Audubon members spoke out on both — and on other issues — and your voices were important parts of broad coalitions. In all, more than 3,100 members and supporters responded to Action Alerts over the past year. This involvement in advocacy issues is among the most important activities grassroots members can participate in—the work is immediate and generally urgent, and the impact is irrefutable.

The pesticide restriction, which became law in June 2022, makes it illegal to use chlorpyrifos on golf courses or for any cosmetic or non-agricultural use. Chlorpyrifos is a double-threat to birds: it can kill them directly, and it also kills the insects birds rely on for food.

The new horseshoe crab rules shorten the season in which it’s legal to catch horseshoe crabs (they’re used as bait by eel and whelk fishermen) and are expected to reduce the catch in Connecticut by 70 percent. Horseshoe crab eggs are important sources of food for migrating Red Knots and Semipalmated Sandpipers, both of which have seen their populations plummet in recent decades.

Another important issue in Connecticut is the passage of the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, which would bring more than $12 million a year to Connecticut to help birds and other wildlife.

Connecticut Audubon members have been advocating on its behalf for several years, and in June 2022 the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill in bi-partisan fashion. RAWA is now before the U.S. Senate.