A FINAL WORD
Heres the truth about our work on this book: The time we spent exploring hotspots to photograph birds for this book will live forever in our personal history as the year we did New England. This has been the greatest year of our lives together, filled with tremendous vistas, fascinating birds, wonderful people, and incomparable experiences. We hope you will find the photos and information offered here useful to your own birding life, and that it will lead you to many a life bird in this beautiful part of the country. Bird well, bird responsibly, and bird hard.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER
Avid birders for many decades, bestselling author/photographer team Randi and Nic Minetor have produced more than forty books for Falcon Guides and its parent company, Globe Pequot Press, including The New England Bird Lovers Garden and Backyard Birding: A Guide to Attracting and Identifying Birds. Their work includes guides to a number of national parks and historic cities, as well as Hiking Waterfalls in New York State, Hiking the Lower Hudson River Valley, and Hiking Through History New York. Nics photography also appears in eight foldout Quick Reference Guides to the birds, trees, and wildflowers of New York City and New York State, and the trees and wildflowers of the Mid-Atlantic region. Randi is the author of five books that tell the true stories of people who have died in national and state parks: Death on Mount Washington, Death on Katahdin, Death in Acadia National Park, Death in Glacier National Park, and Death in Zion National Park.
When not in the field, Nic is the resident lighting designer for Eastman Opera Theatre, Finger Lakes Opera, and the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, and for theatrical productions at Rochester Institute of Technology and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Randi writes for a number of trade and medical magazines and serves as a ghostwriter for executives and entrepreneurs in a wide range of fields.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank every birder we have ever met.
We have long said that birders are some of the best people in the world, eager to share information about sightings, to enhance one anothers experience and understanding of birds in the wild, and to get everyone on the bird, whether theyre leading a field trip or just happen to be standing there looking at an interesting bird when others arrive. When we contacted birders in New England and beyond to determine the best way to find target birds to photograph for this book, they shared their knowledge willingly, gave us some terrific tips for finding particularly elusive birds, recommended places for lunch, led us to known breeding sites, and even brought us into their own backyards.
New England birders will recognize the names of people who were especially generous with information and, in some cases, with their own photos when weather obstacles prevented us from photographing some pelagic species: Stephen Mirick, Peter Flood, Bob Duchesne, Marion Bates, and a number of others who never mentioned their names but who advised and pointed and shared tips about their favorite places. Steve Mirick and Peter Flood supplied most of the excellent photos of shearwaters and jaegers in this book.
We are especially indebted to Captain Andy Patterson and the crew of the Barbara Frost for getting us out to Machias Seal Island in northern Maine for the experience of a lifetime, using blinds to get within a few feet of Atlantic puffins (including the one on this books cover), razorbills, common murres, Arctic terns, and northern gannets.
In addition, we are very grateful to birders closer to our upstate New York home who helped us fill in the gaps and find the birds we needed when they did not put in appearances during our many visits to New England: Dominic Sherony, Diane Henderson, Lucretia Grosshans, Larry Hymes, John Gregoire, Carolyn Jacobs, Thomas Riley, Leane Schultz, Bill Howe, Dick Horsey, Greg Lawrence, Mike Tetlow, Tom and Jeanne Verhulst, Michael Gullo, Andrew Guthrie, Gary Chapin, and Bob Spahn. In particular, Dominic, Gary, and Lucretia provided their own excellent photos to help us finish this book.
As always, the team at Falcon Guides has produced a great book: senior acquisitions editor David Legere, production editor Lynn Zelem, copy editor Paulette Baker, graphic artist Diana Nuhn, cartographer Melissa Baker, layout artist Melissa Evarts, and proofreader Roberta Monaco. Our brilliant agent Regina Ryan continues to keep our publishing careers on track, taking extraordinary care of us so we can pursue our passions throughout the region and beyond.
Finally, to the friends and family who support us in all our efforts, we cannot say enough about your generosity of spirit when it comes to our literary endeavors. Ken Horowitz, Rose-Anne Moore, Martin Winer, Bruce Barton, Lisa Jaccoma, Bil Walters, Christine Tattersall, Martha and Peter Schermerhorn, Ruth Watson, John King, Cindy Blair, Paula and Rich Landis, neighbor Pam Bartemus, and all the others scattered across the country: You make every chapter fun, and there are no words strong enough to express our gratitude.
APPENDIX A: SPECIES BY STATE
CONNECTICUT
Loons
Red-throated loon
Common loon
Grebes
Red-necked grebe
Horned grebe
Pied-billed grebe
Storm-Petrel
Leachs storm-petrel
Gannet
Northern gannet
Cormorants
Great cormorant
Double-crested cormorant
Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns
American bittern
Least bittern
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Tricolored heron
Little blue heron
Cattle egret
Green heron
Black-crowned night-heron
Yellow-crowned night-heron
Glossy ibis
Swans and Geese
Mute swan
Tundra swan
Canada goose
Brant
Snow goose
Greater white-fronted goose
Ducks
Wood duck
Mallard
American black duck
Gadwall
Northern pintail
American wigeon
Eurasian wigeon
Northern shoveler
Blue-winged teal
Green-winged teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Greater scaup
Lesser scaup
Common eider
Long-tailed duck
Surf scoter
Black scoter
White-winged scoter
Common goldeneye
Barrows goldeneye
Bufflehead
Hooded merganser
Common merganser
Red-breasted merganser
Ruddy duck
Duck-like Birds
Common gallinule
American coot
Vultures
Black vulture
Turkey vulture
Harrier
Northern harrier
Accipiters
Sharp-shinned hawk
Coopers hawk
Northern goshawk
Buteos and Eagle
Red-shouldered hawk
Broad-winged hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Rough-legged hawk
Bald eagle
Osprey
Osprey
Falcons
Merlin
American kestrel
Peregrine falcon
Quail
Northern bobwhite
Pheasant
Ring-necked pheasant
Grouse
Ruffed grouse
Turkey
Wild turkey
Rails
Sora
Virginia rail
King rail
Clapper rail
Crane
Sandhill crane
Plovers
Black-bellied plover
American golden plover
Piping plover
Semipalmated plover
Killdeer
Oysteroatoher
American oysteroatoher
Sandpipers
Upland sandpiper
Whimbrel
Hudsonian godwit
Marbled godwit
Ruddy turnstone
Red knot
Ruff