View allAll Photos Tagged hammonassetstatepark
Did you know Monarchs are not the only long-distance migrators? I recently learned Common Buckeyes also migrate south for the winter! Since I rarely see Buckeyes during the summer, and would like to, I decided to do some research into what kinds of host plants might entice them into my yard. Strangely, the plants on which adults lay eggs are all non-native, "introduced" plants (aka weeds) and exotic annuals - apparently no native plants. As it turns out, their "original ancestry has been traced to Africa" - which means the Buckeye is not native to our area either. But I can't see any harm in encouraging them. Host plants include narrowleaf plantain and snapdragons. I will be planting snapdragons in my yard next summer!
www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Junonia-coenia?fbclid...
www.thespruce.com/growing-and-caring-for-snapdragons-1402915
Seen along the Meig's Point trail at Hammonasset
Fishermen and fisherwomen are bundled up as they fish in the
Long Island Sound. This was taken at Meigs Point in Hammonasset Beach in Hammonasset State Park near Madison, CT. I was joined by other local photographers as a member of Ye Olde Greater New England Photography Meetup Guild.
White-winged Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera), female, feeding.
Hammonasset State Park
Madison CT
01/01/13
96
Friends of Hammonasset presents Hammonasset Festival, a celebration of Native American culture and spirit, honoring the environment and her ecology: This woman was standing off to the side with the salt marsh in the background. Her colors harmonized nicely with the greens and yellows in the background.
30th September 2012., Clinton, Connecticut, USA
Seen during the "Connecticut street rod association's" charity event at Hamonnasett state Park on 30th September 2012
More information on the club, can be found here ...
"Mr No Respect" is a Modified pulling tractor, which its owners tell me they have decided to sell. It runs on alcohol and uses approx 9 gallons for a 300 foot sprint
Full details of the team running this behemoth with contact details and a history can be found on their website here .......
This Gull has the black ring of a Ring-billed Gull AND the red dot of a Herring Gull. I was shooting into the sun and couldn't make out the leg color. California Gulls have black rings AND red dots - but they're, um, in California, not Connecticut... Seen at Hammonasset State Park in Madison, CT (USA), on Feb 25, 2017.
Can't tell what it is until I see its flowers, but probably a Starry, since there were plenty of those along the trail. If not, it could have been a Smooth, Hairy, False, etc...
ct-botanical-society.org/temp/results.html?cx=01678584566...
Massively cropped. I took lots of shots but the light was not very good and I was limited in where I could position myself relative to the bird - this is the best I could do. Posted anyway, because I don't see many of these in Connecticut....
After posting my photo, I saw a post on Kristofer Rowe's Facebook page which says he's been photographing a Little Blue x Tricolored hybrid at Hammonasset. (I don't know how to embed Facebook photos in Flickr, so you will have to take my word for it that he fingered this bird at Hammo - but I will embed his Flickr version below.)
Busicon carica - knobbed whelk (juvenile)
Soooooo tiny. I am always happy to see these guys this time of year.
We had a pretty big storm in the Northeast with a lot of property damage and loss of life (but not so much in Connecticut). Here's what Hammonasset State Park looked like five days after the storm, the first day the park was partially reopened. Wonder where that piece of dock came from. Yeah, it was a little nippy out there....
Seagulls may be a common sight, but they are interesting nonetheless. I made a "video" of 14 stills. The last five shots show a Herring Gull flying into the air (about 30 feet or more) above the Hammonasset park road with a shell, then dropping it to the road below. These shots were taken 30 seconds apart. Eventually the shell broke open and the gull was able to eat the creature inside.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDczpe0E26k
I've learned to distinguish between Herring Gulls (red spot on lower beak, dull pink legs) and Ring-billed Gulls (black ring around beak, greenish-yellow legs). Herring Gulls are slightly larger than Ring-billed Gulls. And, according to Cornell, Herring Gulls are pretty interesting:
- Herring Gulls prefer drinking freshwater, but they'll drink seawater when they must. Special glands located over the eyes allow them to excrete the salt that would otherwise dehydrate most animals, including us. The salty excretion can be seen dripping out of their nostrils and off the ends of their bills.
- Breeding brings special dietary challenges for Herring Gulls. During courtship, males feed their mates, losing fat reserves in the process. Then egg-laying reduces the females’ protein and bone calcium, and they seek out marine invertebrates and fish to replenish stores. After chicks hatch, both parents feed them day and night for up to 12 weeks, splitting foraging shifts to offer each chick up to half a pound of food per day as it nears fledging.
- Sibling rivalry is a problem in the bird world, too. The third chick in a Herring Gull clutch can have it especially tough. While the first two chicks hatch the same day, the third is born a day or two later, weighs less, gets less food, and grows more slowly.
Incubating Herring Gulls often pant to cool off. They orient their bodies to keep darker plumage out of direct sun as best they can, but short of dipping their feet and legs into water, their mouth lining is their best means of shedding heat.
- An adult Herring Gull was spotted bait-fishing. It floated bits of bread on the surface of a Paris pond and attacked goldfish feeding on the bread. It ate none of the bread itself, indicating deliberate tool use.
- Herring Gulls patrol shorelines and open ocean in widely scattered groups, soaring raptor-like and spiraling down to pick scraps off the surface. Individuals plunge-dive from near the surface and dip while paddling to take shallow prey. Rallying around fishing boats or refuse dumps, they are raucous and competitive, threatening and stealing from other birds. They'll prowl tide flats seeking out invertebrates, gobbling small items whole, picking apart larger prey, and dropping shellfish onto rocks to break them open. Tighter groups follow foraging whales, groups of dolphins, or schools of large fish in open water, hovering to nab small prey driven to the surface. Their opportunistic scavenging punctuates hours of bathing, preening, and “loafing” near food sources. (“Loafing” is a term behaviorists use to describe a bird that isn’t doing much of anything; many seabirds spend long hours this way.) Males establish breeding territories and both members of a bonded pair defend it with threatening postures, warning calls, and chase-attacks in air and on ground. Courtship rituals include mate-feeding, and pairs remain bonded as long as both live. They return to the same territories each breeding season and share the work through a month of incubation and three months of chick-raising. One parent is always at the nest until the chicks are at least a month old.
Hammonasset State Park, Connecticut, USA.
I was having a lonely day. I felt homesick. And disconnected. I was beginning to feel like I wasn't even on this amazing trip of a lifetime. I felt like I was just a shadow on the world. That became my theme of the trip after this ... even on the good days.
The rocks at Meigs Point, Hammonasset are all loose sediments, transported here by moving ice. They range in size from fine silt to large boulders. Connecticut and Long Island Sound were covered with glacial ice at least a mile thick about 21,000 years ago.
Somewhat similar in appearance to the Spurge weed, but Golden Alexanders is a native plant.
Golden Alexanders
Zizia aurea
• Family: Carrot (Apiaceae)
• Habitat: wet meadows and thickets, swamps
• Height: 1-3 feet
• Flower size: tiny, in a flat-topped cluster 2 inches across
• Flower color: yellow
• Flowering time: April to June
• Origin: native
This Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) found this sandy spot in a crack in the middle of the West Beach parking lot at Hammonasset.
Madison CT
11/15/11
69
Last week I met up with other members of my camera club to take pictures along a trail at Hammonasset. It was a windy evening but we were fairly sheltered along a short trail at Meig's Point, and we found lots of things to photograph.
Song Sparrows are found in an enormous variety of open habitats, including tidal marshes, arctic grasslands, desert scrub, pinyon pine forests, aspen parklands, prairie shelterbelts, Pacific rain forest, chaparral, agricultural fields, overgrown pastures, freshwater marsh and lake edges, forest edges, and suburbs. You may also find Song Sparrows in deciduous or mixed woodlands.