Great Egret Fishing Gray's Creek
We spotted this beautiful Great Egret last week patiently search Gray's Creek for its lunch. The beautiful long, delicate plumes on its back long are prominent during breeding season.
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
Great Egret vs. Snowy Egret, what are the differences?
Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets are distinguished primarily by size and facial features: Great Egrets are much larger nearly 40” tall with yellow bills, (sometimes orange-ish in breeding season), a thicker neck and black legs/feet.
Snowy Egrets are smaller, around 24” with black bills, yellow lores (skin between eye and bill), and are known for their "golden slippers"; bright yellow feet contrasted with black legs and can have shaggy plumes on their chest and back. Great Egrets tend to be patient hunters, standing still in shallow water. Snowy Egrets are much more active, often chasing prey or stirring up the bottom with their feet to find food.
Great Egrets patiently and carefully walk through the body of water in which they are fishing.
The CT DEEP has great information on these beautiful birds including their history in CT. Visit CT DEEP Egrets
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
The great egret was a "very rare" Connecticut visitor by the mid-1800s due, in large part, to market hunting. Protective legislation passed in the early 1900s helped populations stabilize. By the 1920s, egrets were increasingly seen along the Connecticut coastline during migration. In the 1940s, they were regular coastal visitors and were even spotted in the Waterbury and Hartford areas. The first recorded great egret nest in Connecticut was in the Norwalk Islands in 1961. Today, the great egret nests in limited numbers on offshore islands along Connecticut's coast. The birds can be seen at many inland areas during migration and after the breeding season as they search for food.
Learn more about Egrets at All About Birds.org
Westport’s Terrain Welcomes Spring
Photos By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com
On Saturday, Terrain, Westport’s much loved home, garden and greenhouse on the Post Road held their annual Dig Into Spring 2026 event. The 17,000 sq. ft. store is a go-to source for nature-inspired décor, candles and lighting, seasonal packaged foods and gifts.Their greenhouse greenhouse offers a lush assortment of indoor plants and containers, as well as a station for custom plantings by their Design Services team. Terrain’s nursery is filled with locally sourced plants, outdoor containers and gardening essentials, as well as outdoor furniture and fire pits.
Photos By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com. Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
Terrain’s spring kickoff festival featured live music, kids’ wildflower planting and Mother’s Day crafts, an Aperol Spritz bar, Pantry tastings, styling sessions, complimentary potting, native plant tours, guest vendors including Bodhi Bear Apothecary Honey and Redding Knife Company and free Polaroid photos in the garden. Above right, some of the nursery’s pollinator offerings designed to attract butterflies and bees to enhance your garden experience and improve the ecosystem.
But the highlight was the nursery itself, with banners showing groups ofdistinct garden styles with the growing conditions worked in:
The Cottage Garden – loves full sun; classic, colorful, dense plantings with lots of blooms, Woodland – thrives in shade to partial shade; lush, layered greenery and ferns, Meadow – airy and loose, usually sun-loving; natural, flowing grasses and wildflowers, and Big Sur – dry-tolerant, prefers sun; coastal-inspired plants that handle drought and lean soil
Pictured above and below is Guilford, Connecticut-born singer, songwriter, musician and Berklee College trained Laura Clapp provided a wonderful garden ambiance with her blend of pop and rock favorites.
Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.It was a fun filled day and Terrain’s stylist, Lynn, said it best about her tablescape, “We wanted this to feel like you’ve just come in from the garden—rosemary in your glass, citrus on the table, and everything fresh, layered and ready to gather around.”
Photos By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com.
Many Hundreds Line Post Road In Downtown Westport Saturday For No Kings Protest
There were two No Kings protests on Saturday with one held on Jesup Green by organizers including Vicki Volper and her group, ReSisters and the second by the group which regularly holds the Saturday protest. That crowd lined the Post Road from the west end of the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Memorial bridge extending to Church Lane.
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
**NOTE : Some signs held by protesters use explicit language and profanity which some viewers might find objectionable.
Westporters joined a reported eight million protestors nationwide for No Kings 3.0 which occurred in an estimated 3,000 plus locations all over the U.S. with others held internationally. Access to Parker Harding Plaza was a bit limited but most drivers were patient.
The “bridge” protests as they are known occur most Saturdays, but the numbers increased substantially for the No Kings event, especially when protesters from Jesup Green joined those on the bridge and Post Rd. East.
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
While not every passing car did so, many drivers blared their horns with passengers taking pics of the crowd, waving and smiling to show their support of the cause the protesters
The protestors were not only peaceful and respectful, some signs not withstanding, but seemed to project a joyful presence to be expressing their first amendment rights and making their feelings about the controversial and potentially lawless actions of the current administrations.
Photos and Story By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
The protestors formed a solid line all along the Post Road displaying a variety signs in opposition to current administration actions.
We are not sure if the creatures in the above photos are local or from some distant, whimsical land, but they provided a clear message relating to the Epstein issue, the subject of several of the signs of the protestors.
Westport Police officers made sure pedestrians and protestors were able to safely navigate downtown.
Dog Days Are (almost) Over!
April 1st is just around the corner and as Westport dogs and humans are most likely aware, the days of racing along the beach with old friends and new, and diving into the very cold water at Compo and Burying Hill beaches will then come to an end.
Photos By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.
For the all you need to know about dogs in Westport parks, visit: Dogs In Our Parks
If you are any of these dogs human and would like to help Westport Local Press cover stories like this, please contact J.C. Martin, photographer at admanjcm@yahoo.com
From Florence & The Machine, the song doggies and humans do not want to hear. Dog Days Are Over
Photos By J.C. Martin For WestportLocalPress.com Click on an image to enlarge and open gallery.