Birding CT in Autumn: Country Roads

Wild Turkeys in a farm field, Salem, CT 12-9-10

Birding Connecticut in autumn feels more like winter as the cold air settles in to stay. In the evening of the second day I  make my way to Lake Hayward to a quiet cove at the second beach…

Here amongst the mallards the hooded mergansers float and though I keep my distance, they are wary this autumn day and take wing…

…flying in a purple blur

 

…to alight beyond the sandbar in the violet light of dusk…

…while from my point of view, it all seems a blurry dream, for the cove is quiet now, and empty.

The third day I drive down country roads looking for birds.  I find these wild turkeys in some farm fields in Salem. Along the same road a red-shouldered hawk rises from the overhead utility wires as I drive by. The stonewall edged fields are full of juncos and white-throated sparrows; the trees and yards full of cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees and titmice. Clinging to the bark of trees I find first one red-bellied woodpecker, and then another. Perhaps birding Connecticut in autumn isn’t such a bad thing after all, in spite of the cold. But I am staying warm inside my car with heater running and heated seats!

Down another county road on my way to the Connecticut River in Lyme…

… I find an ice-blue marsh where crows cry and ducks paddle in the little bit of open water they can find…

…and by the roadside I see a wreath of autumn leaves, while overhead a turkey vulture scans the horizon for a meal.  At the river all is cold and windy with white caps and few birds;  just a couple of gulls over the water and a lone female cardinal and one white-throated sparrow trying to stay warm and find food in a nearby bush. You can find so many birds on country roads.