a quiet Sunday after a SOFO Saturday @ Shinnecock

After a period of only sporadic appearances, the Pine Warbler showed up this morning accompanied by a second bird; the two birds were flying and hunting quite independently but they remained near each other in the pines around the house. The quite bright male indicated his presence by repeating his sweet trill over and over again as he flitted from pine to pine. The other bird, rather mousey, with white wingbars and only faintly tinted with yellow, may have been a female or a young of the year; it communicated only with typical warbler chips. Pine Warblers have been regular here in recent years but I have never been able to find evidence of nesting. The nests are high in pine trees and hard to find and the best indication is usually the adults feeding recently fledged young, a bit of behavior that I have not seen here.

A second Common Yellowthroat has taken up residence on the other side of the property from the bird that has been singing since early May. The two birds were counter singing almost all morning long. Only the two wrens -- Carolina and House -- have been more continuously vocal. Starting in late morning another non-stop singer, the Red-eyed Vireo, turned up. This obsessive vocalist is more often heard than seen -- his name means "I am green" and his coloration matches that of the canopy leaves in which he spends most of his time; this is also another bird that breeds in the nearby woods but has never, as far as I know, nested down here.

A very well attended SOFO walk at Shinnecock on Saturday was led by Jim Ash, newly retired as director of SOFO, and his replacement, Frank Quevedo; it covered the territory on Dune Road starting at Shinnecock Inlet and working west to Quogue. In order to catch a low and then rising tide, the walk started at 9:30 am with a molting Common Eider, a couple of loons and a few distant Gannets on the ocean just off the Inlet. At the Ponquogue Bridge, there was a single flying Black Skimmer. At a bayman's dirt road pull-out leading into the marsh, we were able to find a Saltmarsh (formerly Sharp-tailed or Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed) Sparrow as it flitted from grassy knoll to twig to tidal wrack. Alas, not a single Seaside Sparrow. My guess is that these birds are not yet on territory and, until they start singing in June, they are extremely difficult to find.

Along the way there were small numbers of various shore birds including Ruddy Turnstone (by far the most numerous), many Willets, American Oystercatchers, Dunlin, Sanderlings, Black-bellied Plover, one or two Piping Plovers plus a single Semipalmated Plover, one or two Short-billed Dowitchers and small numbers of 'peeps', mostly Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers. Migration, even at the shore, is definitely winding down. Also both egrets (Great and Snowy), many Barn Swallows and a single Bank Swallow. The last stop, at the small Quogue boardwalk refuge, produced a calling Eastern Towhee and at least two calling Willow Flycatchers ("FITZ-bew" is what they said). This refuge is also a botanical haven for its huge field of Hudsonia or Beach Heather interspersed with Oldfield or Blue Toadflax and, to top it all, amazing thickets of Poison Ivy. Fortunately, by sticking to the boardwalk, it's possible to avoid trampling the plants with attendant bad consequences on both the plants and the tramplers.

Eric Salzman