This month, we'll be doing to short reviews of two bird-focused facilities. We'll be starting with one that I'd long wanted to visit, and finally just had the chance. Tucked away in Litchfield, Connecticut - about halfway between New York and Boston - is one the largest and most significant waterfowl collections in the country.
Dr. S. Dillon Ripley served as the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, having a tenure that was responsible for the tremendous growth and rejuvenation of the once-staid museum complex. One of his greatest passions, however, was always birds, and waterfowl in particular. Even as a teenage in Litchfield in the 1920s, Ripley began amassing a collection of ducks, geese, and swans. He would go on to have tremendous breeding success with many species, including the first North American breedings of the nene, red-breasted goose, and Laysan teal.
Ripley's legacy lives on in the facility that now sits on his family's land, seasonally open to the public. Well, part of it, anyway - about one-tenth of the Conservancy is open as a bird garden, with aviaries, pheasantries, and ponds. The rest is managed as wildlife habitat, providing valuable resting space for migrating birds that are making their way down the Eastern Seaboard.
Ripley isn't a very large facility, and it doesn't take too long for a casual visitor to walk through. It is a very pleasant place, though, with spacious, well-furnished aviaries - some walk-through, others walk-by - and I've long maintained that waterfowl are some of the best birds to just sit and watch. Unlike passerines (certainly unlike hummingbirds), they tend to let you admire their beauty and their behavior in an unhurried manner, going about their business, feeding and courting and bickering. Waterfowl are definitely the specialty of the house here, with the focus largely being on the more cold-tolerant species, including many of the sea ducks, which often are not well-represented in conventional zoos (though the tropical species are not entirely neglected here). Most of the waterfowl are in aviaries, with the swans - of which five species are maintained - kept on large, open pond.
Waterfowl are the focus, but not at the complete exclusion of other birds. Wading birds are interspersed with the waterfowl. At the time of my visit, there was a newly-opened pheasantry, a simple but elegant corridor leading through aviaries of different species, from the very commonly-kept golden and Lady Amherst pheasants to the nearly-extinct Vietnam pheasant. There are several species of cranes (including Siberians, a species I rarely see) and a smattering of passerines.
Compared to Sylvan Heights, the other public waterfowl-specialist facility in the country, the selection here is much more limited and the collection smaller, but the quality of the exhibits, the interesting collection, and the historical significance of the place make Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy a must-see for bird enthusiasts... or even just casual admirers.
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