Branford, Connecticut

This afternoon I went down to Branford with my family to visit our Battalion Surgeon and his Wife. We took a short walk along the Branford Nature Trail which runs through a nice salt marsh and along the old trolley tracks that used to lead out to Stony Creek.

The male Red-winged Blackbirds were staking out their territories in the Phragmites. Dr. Young told me that they see rails in the summer, sometimes running down the path. Out in the marsh a Herring Gull was bashing some type of shellfish against a rock.

We saw a few ribbed mussels sticking out of the salt marsh mud and it seems like a very good place to see Fiddler Crabs in the summer.

In April the Ospreys will come back to nest on a platform that has been put out in the middle of the marsh.