Faunathon

What's a Faunathon? It's an all-day stint which attempts to see as many prominent animals as possible in one 24-hour (midnight-to-midnight) whirlwind. Inevitably, this means mostly birds but mammals, amphibians and reptiles are all fair game. Among the myriads of insects only butterflies count and there are not many butterflies flying in the cool East End spring.

Our local Faunathon is sponsored by the Group for the South Fork and Steve Biasetti is the organizer. This year's event took place on Saturday and there was an East Quogue contingent consisting of Eileen Schwinn, Mike Higgiston and yours truly. We didn't do 24 hours or anything close. But we started out at 5:30 a.m. and went most of the day. The original plan was to go to the shore first thing in the morning to catch the low tide but the fog was so dense that we decided to reverse the plan and start in the uplands. After tallying a few backyard birds, headed up to Gabreski or Westhampton Airport. The airport produced its most notable current resident, Vesper Sparrow (seen and heard; it has a very sweet song) plus Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel and Horned Lark. Missing, alas, were Northern Harrier, Upland Sandpiper, Grasshopper Sparrow and Eastern Meadowlark, all known to be former residents.

Next on the schedule was Hunters Garden and the nearby Bald Hill Trail. These are both traditionally good areas for May migrants but not on Saturday. We did pick up some of the breeding birds including a singing Hermit Thrush, always a thrill for me to hear. After a quick return visit to the airport (still no Meadowlark or Grasshopper Sparrow), we headed out to Cupsogue at the Moriches Inlet end of Dune Road. Alas, the tide was now high making some of the best areas either inaccessible, underwater or otherwise birdless. I did spot a tern-like bird flying away over Moriches Bay with distinctly two-toned wings. The only tern (around here anyhow) that has a wing pattern like that is the Forster's Tern which, in breeding plumage, has a bright silvery white triangle on the upper primaries contrasting with the gray of the rest of the upper wing. We have been seeing Forster's mostly in late summer when it is in fall plumage but if it is now nesting in the area, we need to note the very different (and more difficult) breeding plumage which it holds only for a short time in the spring. The two-tone wings are one very good clue to separating it from the other terns that turn up.

Next stop: the relatively new viewing platform at Pike's Beach. Alas, the view was mostly water as the sand flats and sand island opposite were almost completely covered; just a few shorebirds were visible on the shore near us including Ruddy Turnstones, Dunlin and a few peeps (Semipalmated Sandpipers and one or two Least Sandpipers). It was a test run for my new spotting scope which gave me such close-up looks at the differences in plumage of several of the Semipalmated Sandpipers that I started to think I had more than one species. I'm here to tell you that a slight reddish tint on the cap and face of a Semipalmated Sandpiper does not turn it into a Western Sandpiper!

Our 12-hour Faunathon run next took us down the Shinnecock barrier beach where we picked up many more of the above shore bird species at a number of locations plus a few others (Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover, a single Red Knot and several Short-billed Dowitchers). But the best bird was a small gull feeding on the bay side opposite Tiana Beach with the shore birds. This was one of the hooded gulls in non-breeding plumage: two black smudges or lines behind the eye, a thin black bill, light gray back, reddish or reddish-pink legs and enough of the primaries visible on the folded wings to show some of the white. It was a single Bonaparte's Gull, a bird we usually see in flocks in the winter. A final stop at Alcott's Pond in East Quogue produced a Wood Duck pair.

As we were cruising down Dune Road, we passed another birder staring intently at a small pond on the south side of the road. We pulled over to have a look but could see nothing in the reeds at which he was staring and scoping so intently. Later on, we found out that he had discovered a Least Bittern fishing in the pond and then hiding in the reeds. What a miss! Inevitably we were up relatively early this morning to try and find this elusive bird with no success. However, we did find a lot of missing faunathon fauna -- in East Quogue, on Dune Road and at Pike's Beach; the list included Cedar Waxwings, Blackpoll Warbler, Ring-billed Gull, Red Fox (on Dune Road), Raccoon (in the crotch of an old pine tree on my place) and Box Turtle (also on my place). There were two dozen or more Red Knot on the Pike's Beach island.

Low point of our Faunathon activities: seeing two fisherman loading up their pickup with Horseshoe Crabs. The annual mating ritual of the Horseshoe Crabs, itself a wonderful spectacle, is also the source of rich food for the migrating shore birds on their way from the south to the arctic. Slowly but surely, the commercialization of the Horseshoe Crab population is leading to its disappearance which in turn threatens the shorebirds, especially Red Knot which is highly dependent on the eggs.

The high point? There were several but for me it was hearing the Hermit Thrush singing one of the most beautiful sounds in nature, echoing through the woods at Hunters Garden.

Eric Salzman