Red-eye Q&A

This is the time of year for wandering summer visitors and there were a few here this morning: Eastern Kingbird by the pond, Red-eyed Vireo singing in the oaks, a loudly calling Northern Flicker from somewhere. All these birds have some local history. The Flicker was formerly our common breeding woodpecker when we had a larger open area in front of the house where this woodpecker turned into a sandpecker as it dug into the ground to suck up its favorite food, ants; it now seems to have been largely replaced by the Red-bellied Woodpecker which arrived on Long Island in the '70s and is more of a woodland bird. Eastern Kingbird bred for a few years on the rim of the marsh here and might do so again. The Vireo is a common breeder in the near oak woods and, although I have never had the evidence, it could certainly breed here; I have been hearing it on and off all this spring and today's bird has been doing the Red-eye Q&A -- its persistent question-and-answer song -- non-stop all day.

Hot summer weather has brought out a few butterflies (there haven't been many around since the big influx at the beginning of May) and dragonflies (which have been notably absent this spring). Except for a perched Seaside Dragonlet, I haven't identified any of the odentata so far but I'm working on it. There's a definite influx (or hatch) of stocky medium-sized red dragonflies but I haven't succeeded yet in getting a good look at any of them perched.

Eric Salzman