The Sun Also Rises on Weesuck Creek

Our outlook is easterly and, if we get up in time, we get to see some gorgeous sunrises (our sunsets are mostly hidden by the woods around and behind the house). It's getting easier every day to meet the sunrise. This morning's official time was 7:15 am but, since the sun has to clear Pine Neck and, usually, a bank of clouds, the actual emergence of the fiery orb is usually a few minutes later. Yesterday morning, it looked like the Appalachians had moved off shore. A superb mountain silhouette lined the sky just beyond Pine Neck and Dune Road and the sun had to climb above to offer us the gift of its rays. This morning the cloud cover was more broken and the light effects more spectacular as the sunlight reflected color from the red/orange end of the spectrum off the clouds even before the giver of light could be seen. Giver of light and giver of warmth and dryness as well. If you're birding on these chilly mornings, the appearance of the sun makes a distinct difference; the birds come out to catch the warmth and, if there has been a lot of dew, to dry off. It's a very special moment.

You can probably guess that, if I'm writing about the sun and not the birds, these were slow mornings. The Birds of October were still present (Yellow-rumped Warblers, American Goldfinches, both kinglets, both nuthatches, chickadees, various sparrows) but these were the slowest mornings since the beginning of the month. Even so, there were at least two Merlins flying over early yesterday, a Red-tail today and the reappearance of Royal Terns after a week or two of absence. A Hermit Thrush popped up yesterday morning on the path that borders the property on the north side. Also Northern Bobwhite have been heard calling in the past few days and again this morning.

I've been thinking about Wednesday's Lincoln Sparrow. Although I have listed it as a first for the property, I'm sure that I have seen this bird before. The standard guide books don't mention it but Lincoln's and Swamp Sparrows, not always so easy to see well in their preferred habitat of dense shrubs at the marsh edge, are very similar. Just to confuse things a little more, most of the books show migrant and winter Swamp Sparrows as streaked. Every year we get an October influx of Swamps and many of them show at least light streaking. The difference is that the Lincoln's Sparrow streaking is dark and distinct and appears in as a well-marked band of streaks over a buffy ground; the rest of the underparts are white (not always so easy to see). The underparts of the Swamp Sparrow -- with or without faint streaking -- are rather dingy grayish.

Eric Salzman