Mockingbirds may have settled in Connecticut, in part, because its untended meadows are now overgrown with the invasive multiflora rose, which provides them with rosehip for food and a nesting spot. The popularity of bird feeders may also be luring some species to Connecticut real estate, helping them in winter.Īvailable habitat may play a part as well. It may be simply that, as populations expand, young birds look for new territory and move north. Why birds expand their ranges isn’t clear. “Even in 2000, if you saw a black vulture, it was a rarity in Connecticut,” MacLean said Tufted titmice, cardinals, mockingbirds, and red-bellied woodpeckers are all southern species that began moving north in the 20th century and are now common in Connecticut.īlack vultures are another recent southern species that’s thriving here, competing for carrion with turkey vultures. If they ever do, they’d join a growing club. So far, no one’s seen blue grosbeaks nesting successfully in Connecticut. Ryan MacLean, bird education specialist at the Greenwich Audubon Center, owned by Audubon Connecticut, said what people are seeing are accidentals - birds that are here because the wind blew them here, or because they’re just off course in general. They’ve moved from rare to occasional status. On the East Coast, their range is supposed to stop in New Jersey.īut Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society, said blue grosbeaks are becoming seen more often here. They can be found across the South and Midwest, into the Rocky Mountain States. The females are all brown, far less showy. The males are striking blue, with chestnut wing bars.
What’s unclear, he said, is if they were juveniles migrating south, or some New Jersey birds who hadn’t learned the migratory ropes and were just wandering, exploring Wilton.īlue grosbeaks are mid-sized, chunky birds, with, as their name implies, thick triangular beaks. In the fall of 2021, he saw three young blue grosbeaks together. “If not every year, then every other year,” Bear said. Joe Bear of Wilton, a birder who spends a lot of time at his town’s Allen’s Meadow, said he’s seen blue grosbeaks there regularly over the past decade. “I knew it was something I’d never seen before,” he said. Paul Steinmetz - my former boss, now special assistant to the president at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury - saw a female blue grosbeak in August while looking out the home office window in New Milford.īecause the bird was cooperative, he was able to get a good look, go online, and confirm that it was a newbie on his list. “Just when I thought I was putting my Connecticut life list away, another bird appears,” said Cathy Hagadorn, executive director of the Deer Pond Nature Center in Sherman, owned by the Connecticut Audubon Society.