chowder

It was a morning filled with rain and fog but it still managed to turn into a day full of incident. When I opened the back door to go out and get the newspaper, a Cottontail Rabbit scampered away. That may not sound so remarkable but our local rabbit population has dwindled away in recent years -- due (I think) to the loss of open habitat as reforestation has taken over the property. The local Box Turtles seem to find the damp weather agreeable; I saw three different turtles this morning and these were different individuals than the mating pair reported a day or two ago. Even in the rain birds were active. The Pine Warbler, which had been quiet for the past two or three days, reappeared and was trilling away. Parula Warbler and Blackpoll, both active in the past few days, continued to feed and sing, moving around the place, mostly in the oak canopy (although one Blackpoll was feeding in one of the cedars at the edge of the woods towards the water).

While it was still early, I decided to take a ride over to Hunters Garden and the Bald Hill Trail on the theory that, if there was activity in the rain in East Quogue, the Manorville sites would be even livelier. The Veeries (or it is 'Veerys'?) were in -- calling, singing and making themselves visible -- along with the other familiar residents. But the only migrants I could find were Parula Warbler and Blackpoll. One fast, loud and persistent call was either a Kentucky Warbler or, more likely, a Common Yellowthroat on speed. As I was trying to get a glimpse of the bird (I never did see it), I heard loud noises coming from the open area which had been completely empty a few minutes earlier. The members of the Hunters Garden Association had arrived and were setting up the huge pots for their semi-annual Chowder event (featuring clam or eel chowder) which has been held since 1833. Or so it is claimed.

On the way out, driving down the dirt entrance road, I stopped to talk to an old-timer who was heading in. When he realized that I was there for birds, not chowder, he asked me if I knew his cousin, LeRoy Wilcox. Indeed I did! Wilcox was a Remsenburg duck farmer on Brushy Neck Lane whose family had introduced the Peking Duck to this country, turning it into the Long Island duckling! Wilcox not only farmed birds but he spent a lot of time studying the wild ones, notably the Piping Plover for which he was long the world's leading expert. I first learned about Hunters Garden as a top birding site from -- you guessed it -- LeRoy Wilcox.

As a footnote, let me add that the French (or French-Canadian) name for those big pots is "chaudière" which is undoubtedly the origin of the word chowder! A chowder can be an eel or clam soup and/or the pot in which the soup is made and/or the big social event at which the stuff is consumed!

Eric Salzman