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Teresa Kramer of Canton Raptor Care will present the annual Betty Kleiner Memorial Lecture at Roaring Brook Nature Center on Sunday, June 5, at 3 p.m.
“Some Oddities & Unique Characteristics of Our New England Raptors” will focus on the various birds of prey found in our area. Kramer’s lecture will be followed by the Canton Land Conservation Trust’s annual members’ meeting at 4:40 p.m. After the meeting, at 5:15 p.m., the CLCT will hold its annual members’ picnic at the nature center.
Click here to see the complete post from May 14.
The Hartford Courant is reporting that a black bear with two cubs attacked and killed a cocker spaniel in the backyard of an Avon home Friday afternoon.
The Hartford Courant is reporting that a black bear attacked a pig pen in Winchester Monday night, May 30, pulling out three pigs and eating one. A second pig died.
The state DEP has been called in and has set up a bear trap near the pig pen, the paper reported.
The DEP’s Paul Rego, who spoke about black bears in Canton last week, was on the scene for the state agency.
The Hartford Courant is reporting that a black bear was tranquilized and removed from the city of Hartford’s Blue Hills neighborhood Saturday morning, May 28. According to the paper, the bear was taken to a “suitable habitat” northwest of the city.
 Paul Rego of the state Department of Environmental Protection concludes his presentation on black bears Wednesday night, May 25, at the Canton Community Center. Photo: dotCANTON By Steve Wilder dotCANTON.com
Connecticut DEP wildlife biologist Paul Rego kept the quips and insights flowing at the Canton Community Center Wednesday evening, May 25, as he spoke to an audience of approximately 160 about black bears in Connecticut.
Fire alarms sounded about 7:40 p.m., forcing the evacuation of the library and community center, but Rego was back at it 25 minutes later, when the building was reopened and his library-sponsored program, “Black Bear History, Biology and Management in Connecticut,” resumed.
 A fire alarm forced the temporary evacuation of the Canton Community Center Wednesday night in the middle of Paul Rego's presentation on black bears. Photo: dotCANTON Rego said wildlife officials tag both male and female bears, but he said you can be sure that a bear wearing a collar is a female.
“Why do we only collar females?” Rego asked rhetorically. “We’re interested in the females because males are dull in every species.”
Rego opened his presentation with a history lesson about the bear population in Connecticut. He said there were plenty of black bears here in the 1600s, when about 100 percent of the land was forested. That landscape changed dramatically, however, by the mid-1800s, when the European settlers had turned what was now known as Connecticut into a farm state, and only 20 to 30 percent of the land remained forested.
There weren’t many bears around by then, Rego said, and when one was spotted passing through it was usually shot dead.
“Bears are a very forest-dependent species,” Rego said. “Their numbers declined as their forest habitat declined, and their numbers declined as they were persecuted.”
When farmers left for the Midwest and trees began growing again, there were occasional reports of bears in the first few decades of the 20th century, “but no evidence we had resident bears,” Rego said. “It wasn’t until about 30 years ago that we began to see evidence of a resident bear population.”
With Connecticut now 60 to 70 percent forested, according to Rego, why did it take so long for the bears to come back? Probably, Rego said, because they prefer a mature forest, where older trees produce better acorn crops, and where trees die and fall, providing homes for the insects bears eat and dens for the bears themselves.
Now that they’re here, their population is going to keep growing. “At present, there is no population control,” Rego said. Bears aren’t hunted in Connecticut, so, Rego said, vehicles are probably their biggest threat. With the first year survival rate for black bears “very high” at 81 percent, Rego said, we should see the black bear population “doubling every five to seven years.”
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Some more from Paul Rego:
- Male black bears tend to wander great distances; female bears remain in the area they were born.
- Skunk cabbage is one of a bear’s primary foods in early spring.
- Bears love “colonial” insects such as bees, wasps and ants.
- Bears are scavengers; they’ll eat road kill and “winter kill.”
- “Acorns are probably the most important food for bears.”
- Bears den for three to five months.
- Bears give birth in January.
- “One of our biggest messages is that once winter is over, put the bird feeders away. Birds don’t need feeders this time of year.”
- Bird feeders are “the number one damage complaint” linked to bears.
- Black bears can kill people, but that’s “exceptionally, exceptionally rare.”
Click here to link to the state DEP Web page “Black Bear Do’s and Don’ts.”
Click here to link to the state DEP Web page “CT Bear Fact Sheet.”
Click here to link to the state DEP Web page “Black Bear Sightings.”
Click here to link to the state DEP Web page “Report a Black Bear Sighting.”
 Christopher, a red-tailed hawk, is one of Teresa Kramer's education birds at Canton Raptor Care. Photo: dotCANTON Teresa Kramer of Canton Raptor Care will present the annual Betty Kleiner Memorial Lecture at Roaring Brook Nature Center on Sunday, June 5, at 3 p.m.
“Some Oddities & Unique Characteristics of Our New England Raptors” will focus on the various birds of prey found in our area. Kramer will demonstrate how we can work together to ensure that birds of prey continue to thrive in New England.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Canton Land Conservation Trust and Roaring Brook Nature Center.
Betty Kleiner was a long-time CLCT volunteer, according to the organization. Active in many area and statewide conservation efforts, she was a past-president of the Hartford Audubon Society.
Admission to this program is free to members of Roaring Brook Nature Center, the Canton Land Conservation Trust and the Hartford Audubon Society; $5 for others. Additional information is available by calling the Nature Center at 860-693-0263.
Click here for a March post on dotCANTON.com about Teresa Kramer and Canton Raptor Care.
Annual CLCT Meeting, Picnic
Kramer’s lecture will be followed by the Canton Land Conservation Trust’s annual members’ meeting at 4:40 p.m. Co-presidents Charlie DeWeese and Barry Deutsch will report on CLCT’s activities and operations over the past year, and there will be an election of directors for the class that will be serving until 2014.
After the meeting, at 5:15 p.m., the CLCT will hold its annual members’ picnic at the nature center.
Jay Kaplan, director of Roaring Brook Nature Center, led a bird walk at the Mary Conklin Preserve, 144 Indian Hill Road, and along Barbourtown Road on May 1.
He posted the following report on the the Canton Land Conservation Trust website.
“Sunday May 1st was a beautiful spring day, and 12 early risers took advantage of it right from the start, meeting at the Mary Conklin property for a morning bird walk.
“The woods were surprisingly quiet, although we were treated to a territorial skirmish between male downy woodpeckers and another involving a group of yellow-bellied sapsuckers. The Conklin property is noted for its woodpeckers, and five of the six species that nest on the property were seen or heard.
“One of the new birdhouses appears to have attracted a pair of eastern bluebirds, and several tree swallows were seen in the vicinity of another.
“After spending an hour at the Conklin property, the group departed for a rendezvous at nearby Cherry Brook Primary School, where we left our cars for a leisurely stroll down Barbourtown Road to Meadow Road. The latter is one of the best “birding” roads in Canton, and it provided us with nice looks at a variety of birds, including a green heron, purple finch and yellow warbler. The walk concluded at 9:30 a.m., with 41 species of birds seen or heard.”
The list of birds seen or heard (* heard only):
Canada goose, mallard, wild turkey, great blue heron, green heron, sharp-shinned hawk, red-tailed hawk, mourning dove, red-bellied woodpecker*, yellow-bellied sapsucker, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, common flicker*, Eastern phoebe, Eastern kingbird, yellow-throated vireo*, warbling vireo, blue jay, American crow, tree swallow, Northern rough-winged swallow, barn swallow, black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, Eastern bluebird, American robin, gray catbird, Eurasian starling, yellow warbler, black-throated blue warbler*, yellow-rumped warbler, common yellowthroat, chipping sparrow, song sparrow, swamp sparrow*, Northern cardinal, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, purple finch, American goldfinch.
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