$2500 Environmental Champion Award Designated to CCT to Help the American Kestrel

Above: Bart Jones, Art Gingert, and George Logan, Director, Community Relations, Aquarion Water Company. Photo by Don Heiny.

Visitors to the Coltsfoot Valley can now watch for the rare American Kestrel, thanks in part to the next box designed and installed by West Cornwall resident Art Gingert. Art is the 2021 recipient of Aquarion Water Company’s Environmental Champion in the Adult Category and has designated CCT to be given the $2500 award funds to be used for Art’s American Kestrel program in Cornwall and elsewhere in Connecticut.

CCT is honored to have been chosen and we look forward to seeing Art’s progress and sharing the results with you.

More about Art Gingert and the American Kestrel from the Aquarion Water Company

The American kestrel is a small, but mighty falcon about the size of a mourning dove or robin. In Connecticut, the kestrel has been adversely impacted by the reduction of agriculture, regrowth of forests, and overall development that have diminished habitat and suitable nesting areas. This is where Art Gingert of West Cornwall, CT comes in. Since 1977, Art has worked tirelessly on the kestrels’ behalf by building bird boxes, identifying suitable habitats, and mounting nest boxes for the kestrels to breed. Through the American Kestrel Nest Box program and Art’s efforts, there are now nearly 90 nest boxes in more than two dozen towns across Connecticut. Following lengthy research, Art designed a nest box that has become the gold standard for helping kestrels to nest and raise their young.

While Art currently works as an arborist, every job he has had, whether landscape photographer or leader of expeditions in Canada and Alaska, has kept him close to the natural world. He freely shares the knowledge he has with those that he meets, including recently helping the Simsbury Land Trust enhance the wildlife habitat on some of its property by installing a kestrel nest box. Art’s lifetime dedication to the beautiful kestrel, a small but important bird, truly shows him to truly be an Environmental Champion.