Ban on Bird Feeders Lifted

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New Canaan residents can bring their bird feeders back outdoors again now that the  mysterious bird die-off that started in July has subsided. During the Conservation Commission’s Sept. 9 virtual meeting, Newell Cotton, a member of Friends of Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve, provided an update on the strange disease that resulted in a ban on bird feeding. Cotton said the mysterious affliction “was a concern during the summer—you probably saw the Connecticut Audubon’s communications regarding taking down feeders—but now they say feeders can go back up.”

Cotton said although the alarming trend of birds suddenly dying “did make its way to Connecticut, it was in very small numbers.”

“It was more of a Mid-Atlantic occurrence—around Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland,” he said. “I don’t think the root cause has been identified.

Around Town

More Improvements Coming to Bristow Bird Sanctuary

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More improvements at Bristow Bird Sanctuary—including improving trails, adding more boardwalk, building a new pavilion and adding a bird blind—will soon be underway. During the Conservation Commission’s meeting on Sept. 9, Chairman Chris Schipper announced that the town is actively bidding for phase two of the project, which will be privately funded and includes the construction of footings and a pad for the new pavilion. “I was very pleased to have seen the bid notice out today for Centennial Master Plan Phase 2,” Schipper said during the virtual meeting. “Let’s hope we get some interested responders who can undertake that phase.”

Director of Public Works Tiger Mann said the contractor who won the bid for phase one has been notified that bidding is now open for phase two.

Around Town

‘He Was Like a Beacon’: New Canaanites Remember the Late Cam Hutchins

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Among the many words that Whitney Williams uses to describe her friend, the late Cam Hutchins—humble, gifted, creative, solid, thoughtful, unpretentious, honest and diplomatic—is “mischievous.”

Once on a cold day during a boys soccer game, Hutchins snapped a picture of Williams as she sat bundled up in the stands in “one of those sleeping bag coats,” she recalled, with “a terrible hat on” and “screaming” with other parents while cheering on their sons, “just looking awful.”

“He took a picture of me, in particular, looking horrible,” Williams recalled with a laugh. “And every now and then, out of nowhere, this photo would just appear on my phone. He would just send it for no reason whatsoever. And I would just be like, ‘Oh my god.’ It was just his way of saying, ‘Hey, I’m just thinking about you.’ But he’s not going to send a nice picture. He’s going to send a horrible picture.”

Earlier this month, as Williams went with friends and family to visit Hutchins in hospice and say goodbye, she recalled through tears, “I said to him, ‘Cam, still the absolute worst picture I’ve ever seen of me.’ ”

”And he said, ‘I had to take a thousand pictures of you before I got a bad one.’ And I thought: That’s just so Cam.

Chris Schipper

‘We Are Lagging Behind’: Parking Officials Recommend Creation of More Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Downtown

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The New Canaan Parking Commission is recommending that the town install a second electric vehicle charging station at Morse Court and at least one more in the Town Hall lot. Officials also should consider updating the New Canaan Zoning Regulations to require developers in creating multi-unit housing to set aside a percentage of attendant spaces for electric vehicles, or ‘EVs,’ with charging units provided, according to Commission Chair Keith Richey. “We look kind of pathetic now because these other towns have got them, have got more charging stations,” Richey said during the appointed body’s regular meeting, held May 6 via videoconference. 

“We are lagging behind,” he said. Richey and Commissioners Laura Budd, Jennifer Donovan, Drew Magratten and Peter Ogilvie voted 5-0 to make the recommendation to the Board of Selectmen. The selectmen are expected to take it up at their regular meeting Tuesday.

Around Town

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: Kristen Pace (and Family)

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Peter Ogilvie first noticed the activity at Canoe Hill Cemetery in the months after the COVID-19 pandemic set in last year, in driving by it on Laurel Road each day. Perched on a hill off of the east side of Laurel not far from the intersection of Canoe Hill Road, the final resting place of 200-plus New Canaanites—including the town’s (and possibly Connecticut’s) last living slave, Onesimus Comstock—had fallen into disrepair. With little dedicated parking and difficult to access even by foot, given a steep hill and crumbling stone staircase, the .69-acre burial ground was largely covered in weeds and fallen branches, with broken and illegible gravestones scattered about. One day, Ogilvie pulled over to see what was happening in the cemetery, and there met Kristen Pace and her daughters, busy at work. “She took on this project all by herself and in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of quarantining, and with her daughters out there, did the physical work of cutting down weeds and cleaning up just unbelievable truckloads of crap,” Ogilvie said.