With assistance from the Shore Line Trolley Museum, the New Haven Bird Club and the Friends of Farm River Estuary held a joint birding and trolley-riding field trip on May 3. Two antique trolley cars carried our huge group of forty-two from the museum to the end of the line in the East Haven Marsh Wildlife Area. From there, we walked back the 1.3 miles along the tracks, stopping to train our binoculars and scopes on the wading birds, shorebirds, and passerines on the way. Highlights included the large number of Ospreys circling the marsh and sitting on the many nest platforms, an exceptional group of at least 12 Yellow-crowned Night Herons feeding or just hanging out in the marsh, a couple of Turkey vultures sunning themselves with wings spread on a cliffside by the tracks, a Pectoral Sandpiper feeding with several Greater Yellowlegs, Marsh Wrens in the reeds, and a last-bird of the day, a male American Kestrel by the parking lot. We’ll be birding the trolley trail again with the Friends of Farm River Estuary this coming October. You should come along. Everyone’s welcome.
DeWitt Allen