Menunkatuck Audubon Society

06/16/2026

Yale is using small black rodent bait boxes while hosting exhibit honoring life of famed conservationist Rachel Carson

04/21/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=810043618841858&set=a.132923229887237&type=3

In 1934, a wealthy New York socialite did something that baffled the locals in rural Pennsylvania. She walked into a real estate office and leased a mountain just to evict them.

Her name was Rosalie Edge, and she was 57 years old.

At the time, Kittatinny Ridge was known locally as "The Slaughterhouse." Every fall, thousands of hawks, falcons, and eagles migrated along the ridge, riding the air currents south for the winter. But waiting for them were hundreds of men with shotguns and easy targets.

It wasn't hunting for food; it was slaughter for sport. The ground was often carpeted with the rotting bodies of magnificent birds, while many others were left wounded to die slowly in the brush.

The state of Pennsylvania actually encouraged it, even paying a $5 bounty on goshawks. Predators were seen as "vermin" that threatened chickens and game birds, and the general consensus was that they should be wiped out. Even the National Audubon Society refused to intervene, telling Mrs. Edge that protecting hawks simply wasn't a priority.

She was furious. She famously stated, "The time to save a species is while it is still common."

But she didn't just write letters—she took action. She founded the Emergency Conservation Committee, and when established conservation groups wouldn't buy the land to stop the shooting, she did it herself. She secured a lease on 1,400 acres of the ridge and hired a warden, Maurice Broun, to guard it.

When the hunters arrived that season, expecting their usual sport, they found "No Trespassing" signs and a determined woman and her warden blocking the path. The shooting gallery was officially closed.

The hunters were angry. There were threats against her life and promises of violence, but Mrs. Edge stood firm, relying on her legal rights as a private property holder.

She turned a place of death into the world’s first sanctuary for birds of prey. She understood the value of predators, the delicate balance of the ecosystem, and the future of conservation. Her sanctuary, Hawk Mountain, later provided the crucial data that proved the dangers of DDT. Without her stubbornness, we might have lost the bald eagle entirely.

Rosalie Edge proved that a single citizen with a lease and a backbone can change the course of history.

04/10/2026

https://www.instagram.com/p/DW9YadokaCR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

03/12/2026

Volunteers needed!

The Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (AAfCW) and the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Wildlife Division invite you to make a difference for threatened birds at Connecticut beaches as an official volunteer monitor. This stewardship effort is focused on Piping Plovers, American Oystercatchers, Least Terns, and Common Terns at beaches statewide from April through August.

Atlantic Coast populations of beach-nesting birds return to the Connecticut coast beginning in March from their wintering grounds, as far as the Caribbean. The cryptic nests of these birds are extremely susceptible to human disturbance, predation, and tidal washouts. To enhance the survival and productivity of Connecticut’s beach-nesting birds, volunteers monitor at locations across the state to observe shorebirds, record and report nesting data, and spread a “share the shore” philosophy encouraging positive actions everyone can take to help these birds successfully raise their young. We ask our volunteers to contribute a minimum of 4 hours of volunteering per month from April through August.

Training sessions will be held via Zoom for new and returning volunteers. During training, we will review the following: biology of the Piping Plover, Least Tern, and American Oystercatcher, how to monitor breeding pairs and chicks, volunteer organization and logistics, and law enforcement information. Virtual attendance is important for all volunteers who are planning on joining us for the 2026 season. If you are not yet sure if you would like to become a volunteer, we still encourage you to join the Zoom training for new volunteers in order to learn more about the program.

The Zoom sessions will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube so that they can be viewed multiple times or referred to throughout the season. For more information on either training session, please email the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds at [email protected].

-----------------------------------------

Returning Volunteer Training Session
Tuesday, March 24th, 2026, 6:30–8:00pm
Email [email protected] for the Zoom link

***Returning volunteers: please note that we are introducing a new system for scheduling volunteer shifts this year. Even if you have attended trainings in the past, we strongly recommend joining this year's training to learn about the new scheduling system and ask any questions that you may have about the process.

-----------------------------------------

New Volunteer Training Session
Thursday, March 26th, 2026, 6:30–8:00 pm
Email [email protected] for the Zoom link

-----------------------------------------

AAfCW staff will be dropping off lanyards, brochures, and t-shirts at various locations across the state (more details will be shared during the trainings). T-shirts are free for new volunteers, but please note that size options are slightly limited this year.

Training sessions are co-sponsored by the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds (Audubon Connecticut, the Connecticut Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy), and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Wildlife Division.

Thank you for your consideration in joining these important conservation efforts!

Photo credit: Piping Plover. Photo: Melissa Groo/Audubon Photography Awards

03/10/2026

03/09/2026

Our Policy Potluck is back! Join us at Bent of the River for an informational evening with light refreshments. Our topic is pesticides and the bill raised in the Environment Committee - AN ACT CONCERNING PESTICIDE REPORTING MODERNIZATION. We will be joined by Audubon Connecticut Director of Policy, Robert LaFrance, and Louise Washer, co-founder and board member of the National Pollinator Pathway, who serves as an organizer of Connecticut Pesticide Reform (CPR), a coalition of conservation organizations. Louise is also president of the Norwalk River Watershed Association and serves on the steering committee of the Hudson to Housatonic Regional Conservation Partnership (H2H) . Both Louise and Robert will present and take questions from attendees.

We recomend this program for ages 15+. This event will take place in our historic barn. Feel free to bring an appetizer of your own. We have limited Handicapped parking by the barn so we ask those who can, to park in our visitor lot and walk up to the barn. This program is free but registration is required for capacity.

For questions, contact Allison Middlemass at 203-405-9115 or [email protected]

Register HERE: https://act.audubon.org/a/2026-birds-beverages-and-small-bites-a-policy-potluck-pesticides

02/26/2026

It’s getting worse. We must act now.

Scientists studying data collected over more than three decades found accelerating losses. Their research offers clues about the causes.

02/23/2026

Thank you, Joanne Dawson!

The pest control industry is fighting tooth and nail to keep second generation anticoagulant rodenticides in our communities. Why? According to a well known rat expert and pest control pro….it is not about public health it is about $$$$. Fortunately people are learning more and more about what that means for our pets, children, wildlife, environment. Legislators need to start taking meaningful action….every day of delay matters.

Bottomline: The poisons are weapons of mass destruction! It doesn’t matter who is using them! And the industry argument that effective, cost effective alternatives do not exist is not supported by data.

“Compared to other rodenticides and pest control methods, one might refer to SGARs as the proverbial “nuclear option.”” (Audubon, “Are We Burning Down Our House to Kill a Rat? Why the use of Second Generation Anti-coagulant Rodenticides is a bad idea, for birds and people”)

“Because they are weapons of mass destruction, second- generation rodenticides are the preferred tool wildlife managers use to restore native ecosystems to rat-infested islands. But the EPA has declared them too dangerous for public use and ordered them off the general market.”

“What makes second- generation rodenticides so non-selective is that they kill slowly, so rodents keep eating them long after they’ve ingested a lethal dose. By the time they expire, or are about to, they contain many times the lethal dose and are therefore deadly to predators, scavengers, and pets.”
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer-alternatives

12/22/2025

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1467239578099431&id=100044402080542

When Menunkatuck Audubon Society launched UrbanScapes Native Plant Nursery on an urban lot in New Haven, they sold 300-400 native plants a season. This year, that number hit 4,500. Connecticut-based nonprofits buy plants by the thousands to enhance rain gardens, meadows, and other areas they care for to help birds and other wildlife thrive. Not to mention, it’s managed by local youth who are potting, watering, and selling thousands of plants per season. Learn more from Audubon Connecticut at the link in comments.

10/01/2025

High migration forecast for tonight.