Warblers & Spring!

Members of the Litchfield Hills Audubon Society were here at Aton Forest on today, April 20th, 2013, and the birding was productive, despite storms last night and rain this morning. The skies cleared and temps were in the upper 40's by 8 am and we observed 41 bird species. Thanks to Fran Zygmont for setting up this event.

• turkey vulture
• Canada goose
• mallard
• wood duck
• common merganser
• hooded merganser
• ring-necked duck
• Cooper’s hawk
• sharp-shinned hawk
• broad-winged hawk
• red-tailed hawk
• belted kingfisher
• yellow-bellied sapsucker
• downy woodpecker
• hairy woodpecker
• northern flicker
• pileated woodpecker
• eastern phoebe
• tree swallow
• barn swallow
• American crow
• common raven
• black-capped chickadee
• tufted titmouse
• white-breasted nuthatch
• brown creeper
• winter wren
• golden-crowned kinglet
• eastern bluebird
• American robin
• yellow-rumped warbler
• pine warbler
• palm warbler
• white-throated sparrow
• song sparrow
• dark-eyed slate-colored junco
• red-winged blackbird
• brown-headed cowbird
• purple finch
• house finch
• American goldfinch

Shinleaf and Spotted Wintergreen in flower

The low growing white flowered ericads Pyrola elliptica and Chimaphila maculate are in full flower here at AF.

Shadbush Season: four species of Amelanchier in flower, April 21st

Four species of Amelanchier occur naturally at AF:

(in order of first flowers, from April 9 - 21)

A. arborea

A. canadensis

A. laevis

A. nantucketensis

These species can be easily confused and hybrids are known to occur as well. The Nantucket Shadbush is newly identified at AF and is an interesting plant in that its petals produce pollen. A. arborea and A. canadensis look similar, the former tends to have a single trunk (tree-like), the latter many stems (shrub-like). Sepal characters also distinguish these two. A. laevis has glabrous (hairless) leaves that appear reddish when in flower, while the two previous species have hairy or pubescent leaves that appear whitish when in flower. Shadbush will continue to flower for another couple weeks.