About 16 club members went to the Naugatuck State Forest on May 16th for a fine morning of birding. We had to wait out the rain for about an hour or so, and it was a bit wet as we started on the trails, but it dried up eventually and we saw great birds everywhere we went. We started out at the parking lot at the end of Hunters Mountain Road, hiked the trail south from there through the woods and past the pond, and then took the scenic trail through the gorge. We then walked up Forest Road up to Hunters Mountain Road, and walked through the fields on the north side of the road. In taxonomic order, we saw the following birds of interest: a pair of Wood Ducks (they flew out from behind the log cabin at the corner of Forest Road and Hunters Mountain Road), two Great Blue Heron (remarkably observed flying through the woods over the stream that parallels Forest Road), a Green Heron (a flyover over the fields north of the road), a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (on a tree near the cabin), an ACADIAN FLYCATCHER (probably the rarest bird of the day, seen first over the river in the gorge and then over Forest Road), a Winter Wren (heard at its usual location in the gorge), a pair of Eastern Bluebirds (in the field north of Hunters Mountain Road) and fifteen warbler species, included Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Prairie, Worm-eating, Hooded, Canada, and Louisiana Waterthrush. We also got glimpses of the LAWRENCE’S WARBLER at the same location as last year: at the power line cut on Forest Road. We also saw and heard numerous Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Baltimore Orioles, Scarlet Tanagers, and Indigo Buntings. Talk about colorful plumages! All total, we observed 63 species on this fine spring day.
Chris Loscalzo