size matters

It's counter-intuitive but it seems as though it's the big guys who are doing well these days in the bird department. Yes, I'm thinking of American Crows and Northern Raven, both doing well and expanding their ranges. Also Turkey Vulture and, to a lesser degree, Black Vulture which have gone from rare to common around here in just three or four years. The survival and revival of Osprey, Bald Eagle and some of the big hawks -- led by Red-tailed Hawk and Peregrine Falcon -- had a human assist no doubt; we quit putting DDT into the environment and some of these A-list raptors were raised in captivity and released into the wild. Even so, their success has exceeded expectations. Other big birds of their kind that have done well include owls (Great Horned Owl, common in our back woods and expanding its range into New York City), gulls (you know), cormorants, some of the herons and egrets (Great Blue, Great Egret) and some of the larger shorebirds (American Oystercatcher, Willet). In the songbird department, the American Robin, Blue Jay, Red-winged Blackbird, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Cardinal and Common Grackle -- as well as those crows and ravens -- are the birds that we see all over the place; they are the big guys, the survivors that have learned how to live with us.

Their smaller cousins have not always done as well. The American Kestrel, the smallest of our daytime birds of prey, was once the most common raptor on Long Island both as a breeder and in migration; but its populations have fallen off dramatically and the only place that it is really successful these days is in New York City (it nests under the eaves of town houses and feeds on sparrows and cockroaches). Down at the shore, the Red Knots are in trouble and, outside of the managed colony at Great Gull Island, the terns have a never-ending battle (the most successful tern seems to be the big Royal which visits us in the summer); the Least Tern, along with its open-sand companion, the Piping Plover, struggles to maintain its foothold on our beaches. Even among the songbirds, the orioles, tanagers, towhees and thrashers are doing better than the relatively smaller warblers, vireos, finches and native sparrows. Even with the humble wrens, the bigger, bolder Carolina has become more common than the retiring House Wren.

I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to the above observations. Relatively big birds like Wood Thrush are not doing well and small birds like the Tufted Titmouse are thriving. Still it's notable that big and bold (and often colorful) can be the better survival tactic in a tough environment where you would expect small, plain and secretive to be a more useful life strategy.

Eric Salzman