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On Saturday, May 23rd, CLCC, Black and Brown Soul Cycle, and Gather New Haven hosted a Bird and Bike event in celebration of Black Birders Week. The event was funded by a grant from the Claire C. Bennitt Watershed Fund to engage Greater New Haven residents with their local land trusts.

Thirty attendees met at Gather New Haven’s Long Wharf Nature Preserve. We biked 1.3 miles through the preserve and onto the West Haven beach bike path. Before the bird walk even began, we were lucky enough to spot two birds of prey: a Bald Eagle flying into New Haven Harbor—eliciting surprised exclamations of “Here in New Haven?!”—and an Osprey overhead as soon as we arrived at Sandy Point Bird Sanctuary.

Once we parked our bikes and set out on foot, the real birding adventure began! We were greeted by a familiar sight: the “sea gull.” Ade Ben-Salahuddin, expert birder from Black AF in STEM, encouraged everyone to use their binoculars to observe and describe the gulls before us. One attendee noted that some gulls were larger with brown-speckled feathers, while others had white backs and black near the tail. Ade explained that we were looking at Herring Gulls and Black-backed Gulls. Someone responded, “Wow, I see sea gulls all the time, and I never noticed their differences before!” Ade shared, “There’s actually no such thing as a ‘sea gull’—that term refers to several shorebirds commonly grouped together, but it’s not a specific species.”

As we continued along the beach, we reached a sectioned-off area. Ade told us this was a nesting habitat for endangered birds, such as the Piping Plover. Almost immediately after he mentioned them, we spotted a group of Piping Plovers darting from the marsh grass toward the sea. Attendees witnessed firsthand the critical nesting habitat found at Sandy Point. We also observed several other threatened or endangered birds that rely on the sanctuary, such as sandpipers, oystercatchers, and terns. In total, we saw 30 different bird species during the event.