a witchity warbler and a photogenic mammal

A second singing Common Yellowthroat has appeared on the north side of our place with a distinctly different song -- two extra introductory notes (as in "whit-whit-WHEECH-ity-WHEECH-ity"). A visiting Blue-wing Warbler didn't stay long, singing from various perches around the head of the marsh before disappearing. There was a third warbler as well with an itty-bitty scratch of a song but it was high as well as high-pitched and it didn't stay long enough for me to get a good look.

We have several mammals in the vicinity. In addition to the expected deer and squirrels, I've seen a Cottontail Rabbit or two, a species that was formerly common here when the property was more open but is now making a bit of comeback around the edges of the woodlands. And we have a representative of the Cottontail's bitterest foe, the Red Fox. Neighbors tell me that the fox -- presumably the same one but perhaps a family of more than one animal -- has been here all winter. That may not be good news for the rabbits but, on the other hand, if the fox or foxes wipe out the cottontails, they will decimate their own food supply. So it goes.

Yesterday, I managed to conflate two of our best local naturalists, Steve Biasetti and Mike Bottini. It was Steve Biasetti who sent me the ID clues for the American Lady (not the mythical Mike Biasetti). Both gentlemen accepted my apologies very graciously and furthermore Mike sent me pictures of two rather unusual creatures from Eastern Long Island, both of which he found in the Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island. One was an injured or ill Virginia Rail, a regular migrant on Long Island but still uncommon here as a nesting bird. Still more extraordinary was a photo of a River Otter taken by a River Otter! This was taken just a few days ago in that same area by a trip camera (see attached photo). Years ago, I saw a River Otter in the Peconic River (by an old mill dam in the Calverton area) and Lorna once saw one cavorting in Penny Pond, near the Flanders Bay/Hubbard Creek complex north of Hampton Bays. Mike thinks these were likely unmated individuals looking for love as neither of these locations have turned out to harbor breeding animals. Penny Pond is one of those supposedly bottomless ponds that has no visible input or output but, according to local folklore, it is part of the Connecticut River system flowing under L.I. Sound; obviously this otter had arrived via the subterranean route! Just a joke, of course. But in those days, 'otter' sightings were routinely dismissed; now, thanks in great part to the on-going work of Mike Bottini, we know that the River Otters are definitely here and breeding in small numbers on the North Shore of Nassau and western Suffolk and, on the East End, in Southhold and Shelter Island! Long Live the River Otter!

Eric Salzman