Visitors from abroad

The last couple of days have been great for visitors from abroad. The author and birder, Mark Cocker, came on Tuesday and only left this morning for a couple of days in the Adirondacks before returning to his home base in East Anglia, Great Britain. Mark, who wrote "Birders: Tales of a Tribe" and other notable books, is working on a new project on the subject of human culture and birds. On Wednesday, with a group from ELIAS (Eastern Long Island Audubon Society), we paid a visit to Hunters Garden with subsequent stops on the Bald Hill Trail, a part of Dune Road, and the Quogue Wildlife Refuge. It was a good day bird-wise, the best so far in this spring season.

Mark came from across the Atlantic; most of the other long-range visitors came by air from the south. Tuesday was in fact, an outstanding migration day with substantial arrivals at all locations. It was, above all, a warbler day, with a count of 15 species including a couple of the less common varieties. Hunters Garden was active from the moment of our arrival at 7:15 am, with, among other things, Bay-breasted and Blackburnian Warblers plus the more familiar species: Yellow-rumped, Black-and-white, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Pine Warbler, Northern Parula and Common Yellowthroat. A pair of mysterious, rather unmarked gray birds with weak eye stripes, first thought to be warblers, were finally identified as Warbling Vireos, a bird that has become more common on Eastern Long Island and is being seen more and more in migration. Red-eyed Vireos were singing everywhere. Other birds included Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Baltimore Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Brown-headed Cowbird, Eastern Towhee and Chipping Sparrow. Bald Hill was only a little less notable with singing Wood Thrush, Wild Turkey and two notable warblers, Black-throated Green and Magnolia, in addition to many of the same species seen earlier at Hunters Gardens. Still no Veery and no Hermit Thrush.

After lunch, a trip down to the Shinnecock Inlet and Dune Road produced many Common and Least Terns, the usual gulls (Black-backed, Herring and Ring-billed), Northern Gannets on the ocean, a loon or two, Brant, Red-breasted Merganser, many cormorants and a small array of shore birds including Am Oystercatchers, Black-belled Plover, Dunlin, Sanderlings and Least Sandpipers. Not very far west of Ponquogue, Dune Road was completely flooded and our journey ground to a halt. At the edge of the floodwater, we spent some time watching Willets displaying and generally carrying on and we also inspected the differences between Common and Boat-tailed-Grackes, tried (unsuccessfully) to turn one of the Least Sandpipers into a Pectoral, and noted the appearance over the dunes of a Northern Harrier and a singing Yellow Warbler in the dune vegetation. We did not attempt to cross the flood zone but turned back across Ponquogue Bridge, heading to the Quogue Wildlife Refuge whose wetlands boardwalk was very productive with, among other things, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush and White-eyed Vireo. Both the Waterthrush and the White-eyed Vireo were first recognized by song and then pished in by Mark (who turned out to be a very good pisher). And, surprise, the Vireo came in accompanied by a Wilson's Warbler, always a good find in these parts. At the far end of the boardwalk was a small 'yellow warbler' which, in retrospect, I think was, not a Yellow Warbler, but a female Wilson's, a bird that is easily overlooked.

Perhaps the most remarkable observation from the boardwalk was what appeared to be a large insect bouncing up and down at great speed through the dense vegetation but which in fact turned out to be the Shuttle (or Pendulum) Display of the male Ruby-throated Hummingbird. In making this display, the bird forms a perfect swinging arc that is so precise that it looks like a mechanical toy on a string! It is presumably always performed in the presence of a female and this is a good sign for hummingbird nesting in the vicinity.

The busy swallow activity over the main pond included all four local swallows -- Barn, Tree, Bank and Rough-winged. As we were watching the swallows from the boardwalk, a young man and his Latino girl friend approached us and asked what we were watching and we eventually got engaged in a fairly lengthy conversation. He turned out to be a former software entrepeneur who dropped out during the dot.com bust and was now operating a corporation that invests in land in Costa Rica, some of which is put aside for conservation purposes but other portions of which are planted in palm oil, pineapple and teak. A fairly substantial discoussion emerged about the ethics and desirability of all this. His argument was that most of the land purchased for planting had already been deforested, that agriculture was a better use of the land than cattle ranching, that the percentage of land being conserved as forest far outweighed the amount of land that was being developed, and that, in effect, limited agricultural development was helping to save large tracts of rain forest.

Finally, as we pulled into our place in East Quogue, we found a singing yellow warbler that was not a Yellow Warbler but turned out to be a Nashville, a nice finish to an extremely productive day.

I should add that a morning walk on the property just preceding Mark's departure, turned up both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Willets, Yellow Warbler and Common Yellowthroat, singing Warbling Vireo, a flock of Cedar Waxwings, and a low perched male Ruby-throated Hummingbird. not doing a display but just sitting quietly and, as they say, showing well, gorget flashing in the dappled light.

Perhaps Mark should come and visit more often. He seems to have brought good birds and good birding with him!

Eric Salzman