[CT Daily] 02/16/2007

[Roy Harvey]

 From Paul Carrier:
2/16 - Harwinton, -- 11 RUSTY BLACKBIRDS in with 100 Grackles under
feeder

 From Tom Schaefer:
2/15 - Canaan, Route 7 ½ mile south of Massachusetts border -- 2 Black
Vultures

 From Carl Ekroth:
2/16 - Ellington, my suet feeder -- 1YELLOW BELLIED SAPSUCKER

 From Gwen Olmstead:
2/16 - Bloomfield, Timothy Lane  FOX SPARROW, 2 YELLOW-BELLIED
SAPSUCKERS

 From John Eykelhoff:
2/13 - Litchfield, N. Shore Rd. (Bantam Lake's Pt. Folly) -- 4
Redheads

 From Dave Rosgen & John Eykelhoff:
2/16 - Litchfield, N. Shore Rd. (Bantam Lake's Pt. Folly) -- 4
Redheads
White Hall Rd. (White Memorial's Museum Feeders) -- 1 Rusty Blackbird

 From Steve Broker:
2/16 - East Haven, Proto Drive/Ora Avenue, Morris Creek Marshes -- 1
VIRGINIA RAIL, 1 MARSH WREN (each bird observed to within 4 feet in
full sunlight from 3:45 P.M. until 4:15 P.M.).  Directions:  Enter
Proto Drive from Hemingway/Coe and take left curve.  On straightaway,
proceed short distance to tall tree (right/north side of road)
adjacent to rear of Town Fair Tire, and locate dirt road just beyond
tree.  Pull off here or park on Proto/Ora, and do not restrict truck
traffic.  Walk due north on dirt road (away from Town Fair Tire,
perpendicular from Ora and toward Dodge) 30 yards to edge of burned
marsh and four conduit culvert.  Disregard well-decomposed deer
carcass and unfortunate graffiti on concrete top of culvert.  Look
left 15 feet to red plastic gas can with yellow spout trapped in ice.
Look beyond 10 feet to one foot wide drainage channel with melting ice
cover.  Virginia Rail and Marsh Wren were feeding in this thin
channel.  The wren, vocalizing frequently with tsuck calls, regularly
disappeared under breaks in the ice, then popped back into view.  The
rail, producing occasional low grunts, retreated into thin sliver of
unburned Phragmites in marsh and back to the road and scrubby growth
at north edge of culvert, consuming unidentified food.  One Swamp
Sparrow also was present.  This is the same channel where Virginia
Rail was observed to scarf down a frog, taken from under broken ice,
on a 1980s New Haven Christmas Bird Count.