cheshirecitizen.com
Volume 13, Number 13
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Reverend marks 20 years at ‘special’ church
A SURE SIGN OF SPRING
The 11th annual Ion Bank Cheshire Road Races will run Sunday, April 10. Organizers are expecting a field of 1,500 to participate in the event’s various races: half marathon, 5K, and kids fun run. Each race starts and finishes at Cheshire High School. The traditional “Healthy Living Festival” runs in conjunction with the races. Runners can enjoy family activities and dozens of vendors offering health, nutritional, and medical services. There will also be a post-race party featuring food, live music and the awards ceremony. Race proceeds benefit Abilities Without Boundaries, Best Buddies CT, Cheshire Lions Club and other community organizations in Cheshire. To register to run, or for more information, visit cheshirehalfmarathon.org or call 203-481-5933.
A celebration of the 20-year ministry of the Rev. Alison McCaffrey at Cheshire’s First Congregational Church will take place Sunday, April 3 at a 10 a.m. worship service. McCaffrey A reception will follow. “I first felt a call to ministry when I was six or seven,” said McCaffrey. Sitting in the pew and looking at the clergy, “I said, ‘I want to do that someday’,” she recalls. See 20 years, A13
Bird-lovers flock to home where unique sparrow seen By Joy VanderLek The Citizen
Guide to Birds.” Inside was a picture of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. “That was my bird,” she said.
A few months back, Cheshire resident and long-time birder Anne McNulty made an ex- The website allaboutbirds.org states: “In late April 1870, a shipment of European birds citing discovery; a Eurasian Tree Sparrow from Germany was released in St. Louis, was visiting her bird feeder. Missouri, in order to provide familiar bird McNulty and her husband Henry have a species for newly-settled European immisummer home in Old Saybrook, and that’s grants. The shipment included 12 hardy where the sighting took place. “I had no Eurasian Tree Sparrows. These chestnutidea, and admit that I was naive and somecapped, white-cheeked arrivals prospered in what clueless when I first saw the bird,” said the hedges and woodlots of the region, ultiMcNulty. mately spreading through northeastern MisThe lightbulb went off soon after, as McNul- souri, west-central Illinois, and southeastern ty flipped through a copy of the “Sibley See Sparrow, A4
A Eurasian Tree Sparrow at Anne McNulty’s birdfeeder.