Stephen P. Broker
My school is located on City of New Haven parklands and is in effect an extension of East Rock Park, a city park that was established in the nineteenth century and continues to fall under the management of the New Haven Department of Parks, Recreation, and Trees. The school and the park are located at the base of East Rock, a trap rock ridge which is the southernmost in a series of north-south trending ridges that are found in the central valley lowlands of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Hamden's Sleeping Giant (Mount Carmel), the Hanging Hills of Meriden, Ragged Mountain in Berlin and Kensington, Talcott Mountain in Avon, Simsbury, and Farmington, and the Barndoor Hills of northern Connecticut are additional components of the series of trap rock ridges trending north-south through the state. The bedrock of East Rock is basalt, or more properly, West Rock diorite, a common form of igneous rock in this part of New England.
East Rock has a park ranger station and environmental center immediately opposite the school. The Mill River flows through the park and behind the high school, and it joins with the substantially larger and longer Quinnipiac River to flow into New Haven Harbor and, ultimately, Long Island Sound. East Rock Park is enjoyed by such diverse individuals as hikers, runners, nature enthusiasts, canoeists, historians, researchers, and science educators. It is justifiably famous to Connecticut and New England birders for the impressive diversity of migrant and breeding birds found here. The flycatchers, vireos, thrushes, orioles, tanagers, and especially the wood warblers invariably attract a great deal of human interest during the spring migration. East Rock has a broad diversity of habitats within a limited area, including lowland, west-facing talus slopes, east-facing gentle slopes, and upland that serve as habitat for a substantial portion of the birds and other vertebrates found in southern New England. My students are able to carry out field research in nearby portions of East Rock Park during a standard 45-minute period, and we can reach further into the park during eighty-minute block periods designated for laboratory or field work.
West Rock Ridge is the western counterpoint to East Rock Park and along with New Haven Harbor provides geographic definition to the City of New Haven. West Rock is a trap rock ridge formed at the same geological instant as were the other ridges of the central valley lowlands of Connecticut and Massachusetts. West Rock is significantly larger than East Rock, as it extends seven miles from the southern terminus to the northern part of the ridge, just to the south of High Rock in Hamden and Bethany. Its ridge top forms the boundaries separating the more eastern towns of Hamden and New Haven from the more western towns of Woodbridge and Bethany. West Rock has been the focal point of my field research for the past twenty-two years, and I have extensive familiarity with the ridge top and slopes, rocky outcrops and cliff faces, vernal pools, and associated red maple swamps and lacustrine environments. I serve on the DEP's West Rock Ridge State Park Advisory Council (as a member-at-large), and I am a member of the board of the West Rock Ridge Park Association. My advisory board contributions to the state park and my field research have led to my obtaining authorized motor vehicle access to the ridge top.
With some field observations contributed by Anthony Bledsoe and Noble Proctor, I have developed a list of more than 230 species of birds that are found annually at West Rock, including approximately 120 species that are confirmed or probable breeders. This represents an unusually high percentage of the total number of breeding species occurring in Connecticut. My field work at West Rock includes observations of plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. West Rock has been studied heavily during the past century, and it has been shown to be the location of the second highest concentration of rare and endangered plants in Connecticut. It is one of the hot spots for breeding birds in the state, and I have confirmed the breeding of endangered or threatened species in Connecticut including Peregrine Falcon and species of high conservation priority such as American Black Duck, Broad-winged Hawk, American Woodcock, Black-billed Cuckoo, Whip-poor-will, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Wood Thrush, Brown Thrasher, Blue-winged Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Eastern Towhee, Field Sparrow, and Baltimore Oriole.
Presently, I am preparing a report nominating West Rock Ridge for consideration as an "important bird area in Connecticut." My students will assist in this application process. West Rock has its fair share of mammals, also. I have made observations on red foxes, gray foxes, coyotes, fishers, river otters, flying squirrels, red bats and brown bats, white-tailed deer, and numerous small mammals over the course of the past two decades.
