This October 20th trip was also the 2018 Annual Meeting of the CAS, the Connecticut Audubon Society (CT Audubon Staff and Board), whose staff includes Executive Director, Patrick Comins, Director of EcoTravel, Andrew Griswold and Sr.Director of Science & Conservation, Milan Bull - all onboard to lead this trip (along with multiple CAS Board Executives, such as Kathy VanDerAue, Chair).
What a beautiful afternoon to be out on the east end of Long Island Sound. Here is a panoramic photo of the top deck (from the right rear corner) of this 3-deck Cecelia Ann catamaran. You can click to enlarge most of these images, and then press ESC key to return...
The trip began as we left port in New London CT at 3:37pm and it lasted 2hr 57minutes, covering 52miles. Max speed was 35.9mph. SST water temp in Fisher's Island Sound was 59.5F. Air temp was about 60F.
Here is the route we took, going clockwise along the blue line...
Wicopesset Island is a small island just NE of Fisher's Island East Point. Here is the left (NE) side of Wicopesset Island, with cormorants and gulls on and near it, and possibly a raft of eiders, photographed at great distance with the equivalent of 1200mm. This was the greatest concentration of birds we saw during this trip. Herring and Gr.Black-backed Gulls were also flying around over the waves about 1/4 mile left of this island, where even more were resting...
Wicopesset Island, right (SW) side (slight overlap with above photo). Click on images to expand each, and then press ESC key to return...
We were not doing any rigorous birding, but we (M.Bull, P.Comins, T.Green, A.Griswold, D.Jernigan, T.Robben, K.VanDerAue, S.Zagorski, et al) did see the following species during the trip:
Common Loon.
Red-throated Loon, 2.
Common Eider.
White-winged Scoter.
Double-crested Cormorant.
Great Cormorant.
Herring Gull.
Great Black-backed Gull.
Laughing Gull.
If any species were forgotten, or anyone has a better list, please advise. Thanks.
