Barcelona

To most people, Barcelona is a city in northeastern Spain, the principal town in the province of Catalonia. But to East Enders Barcelona is also the curiously named neck of glacial moraine that juts out into Gardiner's Bay just southeast of Sag Harbor. On one side is Northwest Harbor, on the other side the water passage between Shelter Island and the South Fork. Barcelona, along with most of the perimeter of Northwest Harbor, is one of the most pristine areas of the East End (if you can overlook the golf course at its base) and I was privileged to have been asked by SOFO (South Fork Natural History Society) to 'lead' a bird walk this morning with fall migration as its theme.

I put 'lead' in parentheses as I had never before ventured into the interior precincts of Barcelona. Fortunately, Barbara Blaisdell -- an old friend from SOFO, an excellent birder, and a frequenter of Barcelona -- knew exactly where to go! We started at the golf course, headed for the Northwest Harbor side and then followed an old woods road north, a side trail over the moraine and then back on the opposite shore. The walk itself is picturesque with beautiful views of Cedar Point and the Mashomack Preserve from the higher points (including several strange sand hill formations) on the second half of this route.

But we are here to talk about birds and the birds were good. The change in weather was certainly in our favor with cool temperatures on a northwest wind. We ran into several pods of migrants with a number of species of warblers sharing the leafy precincts with many Red-eyed Vireos and the usual B-c Chickadees and Tufted Titmice.

For my money, the most interesting warbler was a very well seen, fall-plumaged Bay-breasted Warbler, distinguished from the very similar fall Blackpoll by the following: bright green above, buffy below (I called it a striking mustardy yellow and it extended to the vent), no streaks below, dark legs, very bright wide white wing-bars, a very noticeable eye ring (or, rather, arcs broken by a black line extending back from the bill. Any one of these features might not be decisive in itself but the totality was definitive. I should add that the Bay-breasted jizz was particularly noticeable, not only in the structure of the bird but also in its green-above/buff-below coloration and bright wide wing-bars. This was probably a first-winter female and a good-looking one it was too.

There were no Blackpolls (at least none seen or ID'd) but, for contrast, there were several Pine Warblers, much lighter in color (more grayish on the back and a lighter yellow on the breast) with blurry streaking at the sides, no streaking on the back and thin wing bars. A very different-looking bird.

Other warblers included several Black-throated Green, a Black-throated Blue, a Chestnut-sided, several Black-and-white, and at least one American Redstart. Also seen were a fall Baltimore Oriole, several fall Scarlet Tanagers (male and female), two or three White-breasted Nuthatches, a Great Crested Flycatcher, a flock of Cedar Waxwings, several Eastern Towhees, and large number of American Robins almost everywhere. Strangely enough, only a few Gray Catbirds and no Common Yellowthroats at all were located. All three of our common woodpeckers (Downy, Red-bellied and Flicker) were present. The golf course was covered by the nasal caws of crows which I judged to be a coterie of young American Crows although some of them sounded a lot like Fish Crows. There was a Greater Yellowlegs in one of the fringing marshes and what looked like Forster's Terns with the D-c Cormorants on a fishing weir out in the bay.

The only mammals were a dead Short-tailed Shrew and a few squirrels. What happened to the deer? Munching on the neighbors' gardens, no doubt.

Eric Salzman