the new morning crew

The new morning crew greets me as I arrive at the pond: Royal Terns on the creek (breee-eerrrrrrr), Spotted Sandpiper (piping away), Northern Waterthrush (chink, chink, chink), Belted Kingfisher (rattle-rattle), a pod of seven Mallards spinning and feeding in the middle of the pond and a Great Blue Heron and/or Black-crowned Night Heron in the narrow neck of the pond where water flows in and out of the main creek. Last night the Great Blue was deep in the channel where the water comes out of the marsh on its way into the pond. This channel which is actually a marsh creek, is now enclosed by high Spartina alterniflora and I didn't even see the heron (nor did it see me) until I was almost on top of it when its head suddenly poked up like a snake in the grass. With a loud squawk, it jumped up in the air and took off. I don't know which one of us was more surprised.

He was there again this morning but a little further up the creek. This time he burst out of the creek bed with a loud fluttering of the wings but no squawk.

The herons feed in the narrow channels where clear water flows in and out and the bait fish can be easily seen. Are the Mallards also catching bait fish? Not likely; Mallards are not, to my knowledge, fish eaters. Could they be catching insects? There are large numbers of midges (or whatever) on the water surface at low tide and they certainly are a good potential food source for someone. I think the seven swimmers are the same Mallard family seen earlier in the spring with the six young birds now grown up to full size and looking exactly like their mom (maybe there are differences but I can't see them).

The martins have completely deserted the martin houses at the end of Bay Avenue on the other side of our marsh. A bunch of them were hanging out by the boatyard at the foot of Weesuck Avenue and roosting on the wires there. The Barn Swallows have been roosting in recent days in the phragmites -- usually a sign that they are getting ready to depart. And, indeed, this morning there were none to be seen. It was a cool, dry morning with few insects and the recent spectacle of martins and swallows hunting over the marsh had simply evaporated.

Eric Salzman