Along the Connecticut Shore

On July 13, 2025 - Shorebirds, Turtles, Wildlife Photography

Back on July 3, Chris Roberts, who runs the great Vermont birding – PLUS Facebook group, offered to show me some of his favorite spots along the Connecticut Shore. They were all well west of what little Connecticut Shore I’d explored.

Chris is a serious, hardcore birder. Meaning he’s nuts. I offered to drive and asked how early we’d have to leave to get to the shore for sunrise. He was game for me to pick him up at 0300. That’s cool, unfortunately I was going to pick him up some 80 miles south of me. Hitting the road at 0130 to be on location for sunrise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Along the way to pick him up, I got my closest ever look at a black bear. I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I’d have liked, I was too busy standing up on the brake pedal. The bear sauntered onto route 91 and stopped in my lane to see what was coming. I managed to stop with 20 or 25 feet to spare. The bear had a good look at me and continued on his errand.

We arrived at the beach as the sun rose and set out to see what we could find.

There were a number of piping plovers with chicks ranging from just a few days old to near-adult sized juveniles. There is already at least one chick under this parent as two more tuck under.

We found seven northern diamondback terrapins out on the beach looking for a spot to lay their eggs or already laying eggs. They come ashore at high tide to make sure their nests will be well above water level. They’re listed as a vulnerable species and this was my first sighting of them. They live in the brackish tidal marshes along the east coast.

Another northern diamondback terrapin along the shore. I didn’t get close enough to tell if she was laying eggs or just sitting.

American oystercatchers were on my to-see list. I haven’t seen any since I got serious about wildlife photography, these are the first photos I’ve gotten of them.

Oystercatchers are cool looking birds. Their orange eye adds some pop to the photos. Whoever is in charge of banding Connecticut’s oystercatchers is doing an outstanding job. Almost all of the oystercatchers we saw were banded. Likely recently, we found several breeding pairs with consecutively numbered bands. Here’s ole N51 who, along with N52, had a nest on the beach.

As you’d guess from their name, they feed on oysters, along with mussels, clams and other invertebrates. They search for shellfish with their shells partly open. When they find one, they stick their bill inside and severe the muscle that lets the shellfish close their shell. (I had to go look up the difference between clams, muscles and oysters. They’re all ‘bivalves,’ meaning they have two half shells they can close to protect themselves. Learning maybe more than I needed, bivalve comes from the Latin “bis” – meaning two – and “valvae” from the leaves of a door. The differences are their shapes, their type of habitat and their flavor, which I didn’t take time to compare.

Watching the piping plovers, we saw a parent doing the ‘broken-wing’ display. They’re like killdeer and when they sense a threat to their chicks, they feign injury and make a big deal about it. The idea is to get the predator to chase them and lure the predator away from the chicks.

A small flock of gulls had landed on the beach near this bird’s chicks. The chicks had frozen in place and were hard to spot. The parent tried to draw the gulls’ attention away from the chicks. It worked this time.

This section of beach was covered in a few feet of abandoned shells. This proved to be very good camouflage for the plovers. When I’ve seen plover chicks on the sandy beaches in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, I’ve often wondered how any of the chicks survive, they seem to stand out clearly on the sand. They’re much, much harder to see against the shells.

The shells are several feet deep along the beach.

A parent and chick blending in nicely against the shells.

The plover chicks scoot along in short bursts, constantly changing direction.

Another chick, this time on a sandier spot.

This chick went right down to the water’s edge before heading back up the beach.

Our buddy N51 reappeared and started down to the water.

N51’s mate, N52, showed up and went foraging along side. I’ve reported the bands and when I get the confirmation, we may be able to tell who is who from that. There’s no way for people to tell by looking at them.

It was time to head on to the next location and we headed back to the parking lot. There were several horseshoe crabs in the shallow water. A flock of gulls had dragged this on up on the beach and were trying to flip it over as we approached. We spooked the gulls and the crab headed back to the water.

At the next spot, we found a pool with several herons and egrets. Chris spotted a tricolored heron, I saw a clump of brush. We moved on.

Next up was another oystercatcher. Meet N00. We soon found N99 and I suspect they were banded in relatively quick succession.

There were a few willets foraging in the shallow water.

Our timing was right to watch the Atlantic sand fiddler crabs emerge from their burrows. They live in colonies with each male claiming a territory. When the tide recedes, they come out of their burrows. And display their large claw – both to warn off neighboring males and to attract females. Only the males have the size difference between their claws, females have two similarly sized claws. There were several dozen males waiving their claws around.

They have interesting markings on their backs.

And they look like they mean business if you try to interfere with them.

There was also a colony of least terns along the beach. A small flock came down to the shallows to preen. And to have the guys carry fish around to impress the ladies.

Turning around from the last photo, I discovered a piping plover had crept up to me while my back was turned.

There were more piping plover chicks that couldn’t have been more than a week old out foraging on the beach.

Another plover chick that stopped briefly to look around.

Well above water level, the beach is roped off to protect the plovers and terns nesting spots.

This guy is a little late in the game. He was still looking for a lady to commit his entire season to. He was industriously displaying his fish to the passing ladies.

Here’s a tern stretching. I think. He might be showing off his disco moves to attract a lady.

We were able to spot a couple of young chicks. They were well hidden chicks hiding under some plants.

There were three juvenile oyster catchers foraging on the beach just above the waves.

And a parent delivering a meal to one of the juveniles.

Lots of interesting critters to watch and photograph. I’m looking forward to getting down there again for a longer stay.

birds, fiddler crabs, piping plovers, terns, turtles

Shorebirds Courting, Nesting and Chicks

On June 6, 2025 - Shorebirds, Wildlife Photography

Early this past Tuesday morning, I again started questioning my sanity. Getting up and around to be on the road by 2:30 just doesn’t seem to have the thrill I once thought it might. At least traffic was light until I got into Massachusetts. I headed down to look for shorebirds and whatever else might appear. My timing proved to be pretty good.

A little housekeeping before we get to the photos. Several of you have emailed with tips or sightings. It looks like I’m having trouble getting messages through to Gmail addresses. I’m working on figuring out why. I try to answer all the messages I get. If you use Gmail and sent an email that didn’t get a reply, I’m sorry. I was able to track down a few people by phone, but couldn’t find numbers for everyone. If you didn’t get a reply, please send another email with a way to contact you that isn’t Gmail.

Want to learn to take your own wildlife photos? I’ll be speaking to the Upper Valley Camera Club at the AVA Gallery, 11 Bank Street, Lebanon, NH next Tuesday, June 10 at 6:30 pm. The talk is aimed at folks with a 35mm camera with interchangeable lenses. The wildlife we’re going to talk about is almost all within reach of a day trip from the Upper Valley. Sorry, no lions, tigers or elephants. Hopefully, I’ll have lots of useful tips. Free and everyone welcome, but they request you register beforehand at https://avagallery.org/event/june-monthly-meeting/.

And one more, I’ll be at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Fair a the Mount Sunapee Resort in Newbury, NH August 2-10, 2025 with lots of new prints, cards and 2026 calendars. I’m planning on traveling for much of the fall and will miss many of the shows I usually do. The League has a number of amazingly talented craftspeople, the Fair is worth a visit just to gawk.

OK, OK, you want photos.

One of my goals for this spring is to get some cute photos of cygnets – baby swans. With all the rain, I’m ever more behind tracking critters down. I hoped to find some swan families on this trip.

I found two swan families that stubbornly stayed well out in the marsh. I’d left the boat at home, they seemed to know exactly how far to stand off to keep me from photographing them.

Next I went looking for piping plovers. Their chicks start hatching along the New England Coast early in June. I got lucky and found two families each with four chicks that had hatched the day before.

Piping plovers are handsome shorebirds, they’re roughly as big as bluebirds, albeit stockier. They’re endangered – estimates range from about 7,600 to 8,400 piping plovers left. They nest in the grass just above the sandy part of the beach and forage in the grass and along the beach. The chicks weigh something like one-fifth of an ounce (less than three dimes) when they hatch and stand about 2 inches tall – about the size of cotton ball. The little buggers are fully prepared to forage on their own. They scoot along the beach, stopping for just a couple seconds before scooting off several feet or yards in any direction at something like 25 mph.

Both parents tend the chicks, such as they do. The parents watch the chicks as they scoot about and call them to take shelter under either parent for warmth or protection. If the chicks aren’t tucked under and the parent senses a threat, the parent will display like they’re injured. They flare their tail and walk clumsily while peeping to attract attention away from the chicks. This brood has four chicks and there are already at least two tucked under this parent.

This is a very rare photo of a chick taking cover under a parent. My extensive research has proven that 99.99% of the time, they disappear under the parent with their butt towards the photographer.

Some sources online suggest you can tell mom from dad by the size of the black stripe on their head, with the male’s being longer and thicker. Other sources suggest the female is drabber. Others say they’re indistinguishable. So, with that solid reference, this may be mom.

And this may be dad. Or I might have them backwards.

When the coast is clear – literally – the plovers will go down to the water’s edge to forage in the debris the tide left.

The chicks seem very tiny on the open beach. They’re easy to lose track of as they scurry about. Being flat on my belly trying to follow them with a long heavy lens is not the ideal way to keep track of them.

I’m amazed any of the chicks survive – they can travel better than 100′ from the parents and would seem to be an easy meal for anyone walking or flying by.

When they pop out from under a parent, they head out to explore the world. They’re smart enough to know they have to find their own food, but it takes a while before they learn what is and what isn’t edible. Dried reeds went in the not edible category.

Here our chick has scooped up a fly of some sort. This would seem to be in the edible category. But not so fast….

The fly manages a double-reverse back flip and gets out of the chick’s mouth…..

Our chick seems to be pondering this turn of events……

I think it was the fly’s lucky day. It was last seen riding the chick’s bill as the chick zipped away.

And a few more shots of the chicks as they explored, just because they’re adorable.

Exploring in the grass at the edge of the beach.

Star Wars fans may see the design of the Empire’s walkers in the chick’s build.

The long legs seem to take some learning before they’re mastered.

Still looking a bit wobbly.

The plovers share their nesting area with least terns. They’re also handsome birds, longer and sleeker than the plovers. They’re inclined to go about their business directly up sun from photographers.

They aren’t great at building fancy nests. They lay their eggs in a shallow depression in the grass at the edge of the sand.

This nest was built about halfway between the high tide mark and the grass, out in the open on the beach. Audubon has volunteers that patrol the beaches trying to keep people away from nests and chicks. There were stakes and a rope fence set up around this nest and along the grass for protection.

And, they’re fiercely protective of their territory – which seems to include all of New England according to them. They’re quick to dive at whatever they think is a threat. They’re fast and agile fliers. There are always a few in flight over the colony. They chatter constantly about whatever needs to be said.

Sometimes the colony comes to a consensus and many of the adults will fly off to the water’s edge together. There’s no way to tell how many remain hiding in the grass, but there were several dozen in flight several times.

Courtship consists of the males delivering fish to a lady. Meet Leroy, the world’s most socially awkward tern. He has a fish and has worked his courage up to present it to this pretty lady.

She finds him attractive and turns away from him to present – encouraging him to mate.

Leroy didn’t seem to have thought his plan through to the point of figuring out what do to should she accept him. He spent better than ten minutes waving the fish around while circling her. She patiently kept turning to urge him to get on with it.

He finally got the hint and got down to business.

He delivered the fish as they carried on with the matter at hand.

The guys don’t seem to have a lady in mind when they set out with their fish. They land near a lady and offer the fish. If the lady isn’t interested, she’ll rebuff him – often chasing him off. The guys seem undeterred and move along to the next lady. It turns out a lot of the chatter is actually ‘come here often? Can I buy you a fish?’

When the guys arrive to present the fish, they’ll often make a nifty swoop and fluttering landing.

This lady emphatically declared she was not interested, thank you very much. Buzz off creep!

Here, a couple of guys have spotted a pretty lady and are racing to get to her first.

They also do a little dance together while courting. They flare out their wings, circle each other and mirror each other’s posture.

There was also a small flock of semipalmated sandpipers that were traveling along a large stretch of beach.

Two more semipalmated sandpipers foraging in the debris.

Our tree swallows are holding onto the box the wrens drove the bluebirds from. Mom is sitting on five eggs. The wrens must be sitting on eggs too, but I don’t have a camera in their box. They enjoy perching just outside my window. Wrens never, ever, ever stop chattering. I’ll admit I’m not finding it as cute as it was a couple weeks ago. I’ve been collecting video of the swallow’s box and promise to get around to editing and posting some.

I got out to visit the Middleton loon family yesterday and will post an update on them shortly as well.

If you’re enjoying the blog, please consider passing the link along to some friends. Thanks!

least terns, piping plover chicks, piping plovers, shorebirds

Posts in Category: Shorebirds

Along the Connecticut Shore

Shorebirds Courting, Nesting and Chicks

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