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