The Flowers that bloom in the summer, tra-la

Late June but officially summer and flowers are blooming in great numbers. Although my post on Saturday's Linnaean trip was focused on birds (with a few mammals thrown in), there also was a long list of flowering plants. The most spectacular were the flowering cactus off Dune Road by the Ponquogue Bridge. This is a native prickly-pear (Opuntia) that seems to regard beach sand as the same habitat as desert sand. These creatures have large and beautiful lemony yellow flowers which all bloom at once. Quite a display.

There were lots of other flowers at the beach and in the upland grasslands including Coreopsis or Tickseed, Rudbeckia or Black-eyed Susans, St. John's Wort, Butter-and-Eggs, Deptford Pink, Blue Toadflax, Common Mullein, Moth Mullein, Rabbit-foot Clover, Venus' Looking Glass, various Hawkweeds and other plants too numerous to mention or which, more honestly, I have forgotten. In addition to Wild Rose both Rugosa and Rambler Roses are in full bloom. Many (if not most) of these flowers are introduced species, garden escapes or 'near natives' but Tickseed (an ugly name for a beautiful flower), Black-eyed Susan, Wild or Virginia Rose and, believe it or not, Prickly-pear Cactus are native to the American northeast.

One previously unmentioned incident from Saturday that I did not forget was the singing Vesper Sparrow at Gabreski. There are at least four different sparrow species here: Grasshopper (the rarest), Chipping (the most common), Vesper (the most sought-after) and Field (formerly common, now much less so). The song was coming from a nearby fence so I hopped over in that direction and spotted the bird, first on an emergent Pitch Pine and then perched nicely on the fence. "There it is", I shouted bringing over the crowd of Linnaean birdwatchers. "But isn't that a Field Sparrow?" asked one perspicacious birder. So I decided to actually look at the bird through my binoculars and it was indeed a Field Sparrow singing something very un-Field Sparrow-like (no bouncing ball) and close to a typical Vesper Song. I had boldly called the bird on what I thought was a sure identification of the song. The double moral of the story: (1) some species can actually sing like other species, and (2) can't win 'em all.

Eric Salzman