Dune Road

This morning dawned cloudy and calm with the wind slowly rising from the northwest and a mix of clouds and sun that definitely favored the clouds. There was very little action down on the farm so Eileen Schwinn and I elected to try Dune Road. There were, somewhat surprisingly (due to the lateness of the date), several thousand Tree Swallows moving in discrete flocks along the beach, sometimes pausing to perch on wires or in the dune vegetation, swooping by the dozen to drink in the fresh water pools left by recent rains but otherwise hurrying along swiftly. Not far behind were a number of raptors. In the morning we saw a very dark juvenile Peregrine (so dark it would have been a Merlin if not for its size and facial markings), a real Merlin, a couple of Kestrels, a N. Harrier (also a juvenile) and at least one Kestrel. Eileen want back later in the day and reported 7 Kestrel, 2 Merlin and 2 Peregrine Falcon plus a couple of Osprey.

Also moving along the beach in the morning were were some Flickers and a handsome female Belted Kingfisher.

Eric Salzman

two identical days, one with birds

After Sunday's rain, both yesterday (Monday) and this morning dawned calm and clear with fairly robust winds rising from the southwest -- strong enough to make whitecaps on the bay -- on both days. These two days were identical in all respects except one: yesterday produced almost no birds while this morning there was a fair influx. I got down to the edge of the marsh a little bit after sunrise and there were sparrows popping -- almost all Song and Swamp Sparrows (with perhaps a very few Chipping Sparrows mixed in). Although Song Sparrows nest here, only a handful of the local property-holders have continued in residence (I suspect that the young birds of the year were mostly chased out). So most of the Song Sparrows appear to be new arrivals. The Swamp Sparrows are definitely new birds (I saw one earlier this fall) and, if past years are any indication, they will be around now for a while.

There were a few warblers including Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula and several Blackpolls in their fall plumage (like Pine Warblers but with streaing on the back and sides). Other birds of interest included Eastern Phoebe, Red-eyed Vireo (the only one of these birds that was also seen yesterday), Brown Thrasher and a Marsh Wren. There were also a lot of Black-capped Chickadees in several places suggesting that many of these were also new arrivals.

Eric Salzmant

ever see a pink moth on a yellow flower?

Early morning yesterday was overcast and quiet but the weather soon changed as the clouds disappeared and some stiff northeast breezes came up. When the sun came out, birds appeared included a fair number of obvious migrants: Eastern Phoebe (several), Red-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos (the latter in a brilliant must-have-just-molted astonished look with its brilliant eye-ring/spectacled look), a non-scarlet Scarlet Tanager, a handsome female Rose-breasted Grosbeak and a Swamp Sparrow. All in addition to the familiar Am. Crows, Robins, Flickers, Blue Jays, B-c Chickadees, House and Goldfinches. Almost no warblers: one Yellowthroat and one plain-looking tree-top bird seen from underneath. There were Osprey but no other raptors seen.

In a recent post, I mentioned Evening Primrose and I got an e-mail from Hugh McGuiness suggesting that I look for Schinia florida or the Primrose Moth, a pink (or pink-and-yellow) moth which is found on this plant but apparently has never been reported from Eastern LI. I rushed outside to check but didn't see it (it may be too late in the season). It's something to look for next year.

Eric Salzman

wet and warm

It rained last night and this morning was wet and warm and, as the sun broke through, it turned into a humid summer day. Except for the noisy Royal Terns on the creek and few Osprey cries, it was a quiet, still morning. Only after the sun came out did butterflies and dragonflies appear -- in some numbers. 

Seaside Goldenrod is coming into full bloom and Evening Primrose, benefiting from the overcast of the past couple of days, is also in full bloom (a bit late because, I believe, they were cut back when we mowed the open areas around the house earlier this summer). Also Groundsel or Baccharis halmifolia is in full bloom with both male and female flowers on different bushes. I assume the male flowers are the ones that look like regular flowers; they are greenish white and not very showy. The female flowers are presumably the ones that look like little white buds; in a short time they will expand into cigarette-like white pappuses (pappi?) that turn the female bushes into a striking cloud of white.

Eric Salzman

two mornings

Yesterday was another calm clear morning with only very high thin (cirrus?) clouds but few birds. This morning dawned calm and humid with heavy fog on the bay and creek. Oddly enough, although the fog crept inland on both Bay and Weesuck Avenues, on either side of us, our place -- most of the inbetween -- was completely clear. Apparently the local birds -- all common species for this time of year -- decided that the Salzman property was the place to be, perhaps because they could actually see in front of their beaks! At any rate there were dozens of American Goldfinches and Purple Finches everywhere, small groups of Black-capped Chickadees and a few Tufted Titmice, numbers of Song Sparrows (seemingly missing the past few days but now back in numbers) and a list of other familiar birds including Snowy and Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Royal Terns, Robins and Flickers, lots of Gray Catbirds and Blue Jays, House Wren, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush and Common Yellowthroat. There were a few Osprey fishing on the creek (I saw one hit the water and come back out with a fish) and a single accipiter circling overhead -- almost certainly a first-year female Sharp-shinned Hawk (small head, squared-off tail). My feeling was that, except for the acciptier, these were not necessarily new arrivals but had been concentrated by the surrounding fog.

One mystery: for the past few days there has been a series of buzzing calls coming from the marsh very early in the morning -- incessantly repeated buzzes like persistant short doorbell rings. I have the impression that I have heard this call other years but I still don't know what it is!

Eric Salzman

blue sky

Both Saturday and Sunday were classic fall blue-sky days: bright sunshine, moderate temperatures and windless mornings with wind picking up later in the day. The Osprey migration noted at the end of last week virtually ceased. Whereas, there were five or six birds over Weesuck Creek almost continuously from early morning until late in the day on Thursday and Friday, there were few birds over the weekend. Some noisy Crow and Blue Jay agglomerations suggested the presence of some unwanted (from a corvid point of view) raptors but I only saw a single Sharp-shinned Hawk high-tailing it over the creek in the wrong direction trying to escape the jays. 

The weather suggested the possibility of migrants but there were only minimal movements. The most notable birds were Eastern Phoebes (on both days), flocks of Cedar Waxwings pausing to gobble some Tupelo berries and then moving on, Red-eyed Vireo, Brown Thrasher, a Nashville Warbler (this morning; in good plumage), at least one Northern Waterthrush, several American Redstarts and Common Yellowthroats, a female Indigo Bunting (also this morning), small flocks of American Goldfinches and House Finches, as well as American Robins and N. Flickers moving in the usual wrong direction (southwest to northeast). Actually the big bird events of the last few days have been the drop-ins of hundreds of Common Grackles all around the house -- both in the open areas and in the adjacent woods -- with their not-to-be-forgotten jangle of choral creaks, squawks and squeaks. This is an amazing phenomenon but grackle be-ins are not exactly what most bird watchers are watching for.

There have been a few butterflies but the big insect presence has been dragonflies: mostly those big Common Green Darners which always appear in large numbers over the marsh at this time of year but also including Black Saddlebags and a small red Meadowhawk, probably either a White-faced or a Ruby.

Eric Salzman

windy and calm

Yesterday dawned with an amazing 5 or 6 Osprey circling over the creek. They were apparently taking advantage of the strong northeast winds which pushed an already high tide into the upper reaches of the marsh edge, flooding all my marsh trails and making it impossible for me to follow the usual track on my morning walk. Larger birds like Robins, Flickers and Blue Jays -- not to mention the Osprey and the gulls -- could deal with the wind and even take advantage of it but the smaller birds all seem to have disappeared -- left the premises or stayed low and in sheltered spots. The Osprey continued all morning over the creek and, when one bird left the creek -- perhaps to continue on migration -- another seemed to appear to replace it.

This morning, by contrast, all was calm and yet, even without any sustaining winds, the Osprey were still there: at least five birds circling, calling, braking and flapping in place and occasionally diving for dinner. The coolness of the air contrasted with the warmth of the rising sun into a blue sky; it seemed like a perfect morning for a fall migration but not much new came in. There were the usual Robins, Flickers, Catbirds, Song Sparrows and Am Goldfinches plus small flocks of House Finches, a couple of Am Redstarts, Common Yellowthroats, a Brown Thrasher or two, and a House Wren chattering away with the usual woodpeckers.

Later this morning, the wind came back up again. A peculiarity (which I also noticed yesterday) was that the ground winds seemed to be coming from the northeast but the puffy clouds racing across the sky were all coming from the northwest! Eventually the wind shifted to the southwest while the clouds continued to move from the northwest to the southeast.

A doe and a single fawn have shown up and often venture boldly onto the grassy area in front of the house (sending our dog into barking fits). I am sure that these are 'new' animals as the fawn has lost its spots. In contrast, two spotted fawns seen earlier with their mother are still around but now appear to be on their own. For the last few days they have been hanging out along the old entrance road to the property and they allow me to walk by, a mere few feet away, without bolting.

Eric Salzman

Ospreys and Goldenrods

I got up early enough this morning to get down to the marsh before sunrise but I was snookered; there was no sunrise. In the overcast gloom of the morning I could make out only a few things. One was that there were Osprey all over the place -- a clear indication that the fish hawks were migrating. Our local birds seemed to be in place -- perched on dead tree stumps on Pine Neck and occasionally venturing out over the bay to look for fish. But most of the Osprey, sometimes three or four at a time, circling over the creek -- sometimes diving and catching prey -- were almost certainly migrants moving south. A notable spectacle!

The only other event of note -- in a way, another kind of migration -- were the first flowers of the Seaside Goldenrod. Of the many kinds of goldenrod that we have, the Seaside is undoubtedly the most spectacular. It is a tall, hardy plant with generous sprays of deeply colored yellow flowers that typically bloom in late September and into October. The plants are almost succulent which presumably helps them grow in sandy soil near salt water. They can withstand a surprising amount of trampling by people and wildlife and even when beaten down they will recover and start growing upward again, often still managing to produce their floral display. Goldenrods have a bad and entirely undeserved reputation for causing hayfever. This reputation is entirely due to the fact that they bloom during hayfever season. Hayfever is, of course, caused by pollen in the air from plants which are fertilized by the wind and wind-fertilized plants like ragweed (the principal culprit at this time of the year) have unnoticeable green flowers. Goldenrod, as its very name suggests, has deep yellow floral sprays made up of dozens of small aster-like flowers and, as its brilliant colors tell us, they are meant to attract insect pollinators. Indeed they do. The goldenrod flowerheads are a perfect place to study insect life. They attract Monarchs and many other butterflies as well as bees and all sorts of smaller insects. Another kind of notable fall spectacle.

Eric Salzman

a wave

A small migration wave -- the first real wave of the fall season out here -- came in last night. It was already anticipated by a movement of Robins and Flickers yesterday and the influx continued into this morning. I managed to get down to the trail just after a beautiful red-white-and-blue sunrise and the bushy area between the woods and the marsh, which I call the migration trap, was full of birds. Oddly enough, these were mostly Song Sparrows and House Finches -- but there is nothing in the rule book that Song Sparrows and House Finches are not allowed to migrate! There were warblers too, mostly familiar ones: several Northern Waterthrushes, Common Yellowthroats, and American Redstarts, at least one Parula Warbler and, notably, an early Yellow-rumped Warbler. Other birds were Barn Swallows and an Eastern Phoebe.

The sight of a raccoon moving in a pine tree near the edge of the woods was unusual (our raccoons are usually active only at night). And loud, persistent, completely unfamiliar cracking sounds -- something like a Catbird or Blue Jay alarm call but many times louder and coming from a different wooded area -- might have an animal or a bird; I could never locate its source.

Eric Salzman

sod fields again

As I was completing my very wet rounds of the property yesterday morning, I got a glimpse, not of a bird but of a birder deep in the reeds at the edge of the marsh. It was Eileen Schwinn who had come to find out if I wanted to check out the sod fields off Route 51 (the Moriches-Riverhead Road) where she had seen many birds in the rain on Friday night. I jumped in the car and we went off to said sod fields where few birds were to be seen except for -- yes! -- a single Golden Plover at the far end of the fields. (Eileen went back later in the day and found a single Buff-breasted Sandpiper with a flock of Black-bellied Plovers).

The rain ended by this morning but the skies were slow to clear. Without sun and with only a light breeze from the northeast, the vegetation was still very wet and very few things were moving. Those two late summer favorites, Northern Waterthrush (at least two birds) and Common Yellowthroat were at the edge of the marsh and, for the first time, there were small flocks of American Robins, with a Flicker or two mixed in, moving across the marsh from south to north (or southwest to northeast) -- their usual track in these parts at this time of the year! Small groups of noisy Royal Terns were coming up the creek most of the day.

Eric Salzman

North Fork

One area of Eastern Long Island where I have not done much birding is the North Fork so I was happy to take up Eileen Schwinn's invitation yesterday to explore. Our first stops were the sod fields from Riverhead east. Whatever the social, environmental and agricultural merits of sod farming (at least one commentator has called it "agricultural strip mining"), the fields -- which I have visited often in the past -- are attractive to certain shore birds which are difficult to see anywhere else: Golden Plover and the so-called 'grasspipers' (notably Buff-breasted, Pectoral, and Baird's Sandpipers). Also, these fields can attract thousands of swallows in migration. Well yesterday was not the day. Aside from some pockets of Killdeer (who undoubtedly nest in the area), a starling or two, and a couple of gull roosts, there were no sod birds.
Our next stop was Arshamomaque, a little-known (to me; although I had been there once before) wooded preserve near Greenport where a Mourning Warbler had recently been reported. No Morning Warblers and no other warblers either although there were more goldenrods in bloom than I have ever seen in one place (also cattails and Rose Mallows in the more open wet areas).
Our final stop was Inlet Pond whose Red House is also home to North Fork Audubon (the other East End Audubon besides Eastern Long Island Audubon or ELIAS). This is a county park perched in the Harbor Hills Moraine with trails overlooking LI Sound and neighboring wetlands. The so-called Inlet Pond is not an inlet at all (although historically it may have been connected with the Sound at times) but a good-sized fresh water pond (with cattails and Rose Mallows) set just back of the Sound and featuring, on Wednesday at least, Mute Swans, Mallards and their offspring. The adjacent woods were a bit livelier and included, besides, the usual Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, American Robins and Northern Cardinals, a few warblers: Yellow, Prairie, Parula and American Redstart. A small bouquet of colorful small birds but gratefully received nonetheless.
Oh, and en route there was a Red-tailed Hawk and at least two Turkey Vultures soaring above the road home.

Eric Salzman

September 9, 2009

Because this blog has many new readers [it is now posted on blogger.com at and <29east.com> as well as on ], it seems appropriate to reintroduce myself and provide some further information.
More than six decades ago, my parents bought an old farm house with 10 1/2 acres of wetlands, woods and uplands at the junction of Weesuck Creek and Shinnecock Bay in the hamlet of East Quogue (town of Southampton, county of Suffolk, Long Island, New York). I inherited the property and renovated the old house (which has been my legal and voting residence for many years). I am a composer and writer but also a dedicated birder and nature watcher. Almost every day that I am in residence here, I take a morning (and sometimes afternoon) hike around the property, usually including the marsh and sometimes branching out a bit onto neighboring territory. For those interested in the exact location, the property covers most of the area between Bay and Weesuck Avenues and Foster Crossing in East Quogue and part of it is accessible to the public through the western arm of Randall Lane and a marked nature trail.
I have a long history of observations from this East Quogue vantage point and for the past decade or so, I have been keeping a log or diary of the comings and goings here (my comings and goings and those of the wildlife that I have been able to observe). After a while, my practice of e-mailing these observations has morphed into an East Quogue Bird Blog which has gradually grown in size -- first through my growing personal mailing lists and then afterwards by being posted on Diane Taggart's libirding. Gradually, these posts have also grown to include excursions around Long Island and to other areas in New York, the U.S. and even around the world. I have an archive of these posts going past at least three years which I plan to post on my web site (don't be surprised if you find my web site is mostly devoted to music and contemporary music theater as that is my main line of work -- my night job you might say; in the meanwhile, there are a few bird and natural history posts on that site). As some of you know, I also do editing and writing work for the American Birding Association and their publications, Birding and Winging It.

And now back to the birds! Yesterday afternoon saw a number of arrivals of note on the property and in the creek. While walking from the house down to the water, I heard the peculiar cracking noise that the Blue Jays make when they spot a raptor (it might be a generalized danger call but I have always heard it in association with the presence of hawks). This time the raptor turned out to be a fast, beautiful, dark Merlin being harassed by jays and crows. This medium small falcon is one of the best flyers around and it led its corvid harassers a merry chase, flying out over the marsh, back over the woods, circling high around the house and back again, sometimes actually chasing the much larger crows. What a show!
Also in the afternoon, numbers of Royal and Forster's Terns came up the creek. Our breeding terns (Common, Roseate and Least Terns breed on the bay) seem to have all left and been replaced by these basically southern terns. Does this mean that these rather exotic terns will soon be breeding in these parts or is this merely what the ornithologists call post-breeding dispersal?
Finally, we were invaded by literally hundreds of Common Grackles which spread themselves out on the open areas in front of the house and in the woods all around. Grackles, with their staring eyes, pointy beaks and scratchy cackles, are nobody's favorites but they certainly form (along with Red-wing Blackbirds) some major aggravating aggregations at this time of the year. Fortunately, they disappear as fast as they appear -- at least for now.

Eric Salzman

Gusty winds and rough surf -- predicted for later this week -- arrived in these parts Sunday. The winds were blowing hard from southeast (or east southeast). This weather system, due to unusual offshore water and air temperatures, might have been responsible for pushing numbers of Laughing Gulls into Shinnecock Bay and Weesuck Creek this weekend (Laughing Gulls are primarily southern gull but, like other southern birds, it is pushing its way north). Another southern larid that appeared Sunday was Forster's Tern, with a half a dozen or more at a time actively fishing at the mouth of Weesuck Creek and even coming a way up the creek. These terns, possibly young birds of the year, have short tails and a compact outline that is quite different from the Common Terns (which have mostly left the premises).
One bird that really loves the wind is the American crow. Our local crows took advantage of yesterday's breezes for some spectacular play. It is an amazing sight to watch them in mock aerial combat with chases, loop and swoops.
Yesterday morning, by contrast, was calm with only a gradual increase in light winds. The most interesting new bird by far was a dark and roly-poly little bird which I believe was an early WINTER WREN. I had several quick but fairly clear looks at this skulking creature which had a thin bill, a distinct eye stripe and a short cocked tail. Both mantle and underparts were dark and stripy; only the breast was lighter in color. Our local House Wrens -- indeed most of the House Wrens that I see -- are much lighter overall with a distinct contrast between upper and lower parts; they are also slimmer with longer tails, heavier beaks and a much less distinct eye stripe. September 7 is an early date for Winter Wren but not outrageously so as they might easily be expected by the second half of September.
Still lots of Gray Catbirds around plus several Common Yellowthroats (including at least one male with a full mask), Northern Waterthrush, several American Redstarts in all three flavors (adult male, first year male, female), and a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird posing prettily.

Eric Salzman