...in a Blue Moon...

I was up before dawn this morning and saw the Blue Moon and it really looked blue. Okay, Blue Moon minus half a day and the color was undoubtedly in my imagination. For anyone who doesn't know, a Blue Moon occurs when there are two full moons in a month, some that only happens when there are 31 days in the month and the moon is full on Days 1 & 31.

There were no less than four Green Herons sitting in the dead Red Cedar by the pond (Blue Moon watching no doubt). And three male American Goldfinches were sitting in a dead tree just back of the marsh -- still in breeding plumage but perhaps slightly worse for the wear.

There appeared to be a bit of migration this morning but with the same birds as earlier in the week: Great Crested Flycatcher, several Common Yellowthroats (including one young male with his mask coming in), several Northern Waterthrushes, American Redstart. Also Royal Terns on the creek and a surprising number of swallows -- mostly or all Barns.

Sue Krause points out that I called the Hairy Woodpecker a migrant when it is always described a resident, non-migratory species. She's right, of course, but we never see this woodpecker in breeding season down here (it breeds mostly back in the pine barrens) and it always reappears here regularly in the fall and winter together with the migrants. They do apparently move around some in migration season which is my excuse for considering it a migrant.

Eric Salzman

O What a beautiful Green Heron morning

There's no doubt that early in the morning is a time that you see things you don't see later in the day. Sunrise is about 6:20 these days although the sun doesn't actually rise above the trees on Pine Neck (directly opposite us on the other side of Weesuck Creek) until after 6:30. As I made it down to the pond shortly thereafter, I was surprised to see no less than four Green Herons perched around the pond -- three of them on the dead Red Cedar on the opposite bank and one on a dead stub on the near side. Although it was hard to make out, I believe the bird on the near side was an adult and the other three were young birds of the year. All of them flew except one very immature looking bird that looked to me like the runt of the litter -- scruffy looking with a lot of baby feathers still covering his head and very reluctant to fly (tide was high and he was probably waiting for low tide and a chance to rummage in the pond mud for food). I've seen birds like that in past years and I believe that breeding herons, like certain owls, start sitting as soon as their eggs are laid so that the young emerge on different days. If there is not enough food for the entire brood, the youngest and smallest is unlikely to make it so that the older ones can survive (but this young 'un seems to be hanging in).

An Osprey, perched in a Pitch Pine a little further up, provided a sound track with its persistent yelps. And a ticking in the marsh grass opposite proved to be a Marsh Wren, first one I've seen this season.

There were also several Common Yellowthroats along the front range of shrubs facing east -- difficult to say whether they were migratory drop-ins or local birds. The certain migrants were a Hairy Woodpecker, a couple of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and an American Redstart.

Eric Salzman

an early fall day

A northwest wind and a dramatic drop in humidity produced a brilliant fall-like morning with one one thing missing: a major fall-out of migratory birds. However there were two interesting birds seen in silhouette against the light of the rising sun at the edge of the marsh early this morning (the sun just about making it over the Pine Neck trees at 6:30 am) but I couldn't identify them until they took off sounding the unmistakeable 'pink' 'pink' of Bobolinks. There were also a few Redstarts around -- female and first-year males -- but not much else in the way of migrants. There are at least two young Green Herons still up and about on the edges of the marsh to the mild consternation of the local Blue Jays who continue to harass them, apparently in the belief that they are raptors of some sort.

There were also a few Purple Martins flying somewhere high (I could hear them) but the Bay Avenue Purple Martin nest structure has been removed (most if not all of the Martins had already graduated) and there is work going on at the Town 'Marine Park' at the foot of Bay Avenue -- an expansion of the Town Marina I would guess. Hope there is a place there for the Martin colony next year. If there's no longer room for it on the Town site, maybe it can go up on our side of the property line.

One of the birds that is definitely on the move is the Belted Kingfisher. Although I didn't mention it in my post yesterday, there were several of these birds moving along the shore and some of the birds that are showing up on the creek here may also be migrants.

Eric Salzman

an early fall day

A northwest wind and a dramatic drop in humidity produced a brilliant fall-like morning with one one thing missing: a major fall-out of migratory birds. However there were two interesting birds seen in silhouette against the light of the rising sun at the edge of the marsh early this morning (the sun just about making it over the Pine Neck trees at 6:30 am) but I couldn't identify them until they took off sounding the unmistakeable 'pink' 'pink' of Bobolinks. There were also a few Redstarts around -- female and first-year males -- but not much else in the way of migrants. There are at least two young Green Herons still up and about on the edges of the marsh to the mild consternation of the local Blue Jays who continue to harass them, apparently in the belief that they are raptors of some sort.

There were also a few Purple Martins flying somewhere high (I could hear them) but the Bay Avenue Purple Martin nest structure has been removed (most if not all of the Martins had already graduated) and there is work going on at the Town 'Marine Park' at the foot of Bay Avenue -- an expansion of the Town Marina I would guess. Hope there is a place there for the Martin colony next year. If there's no longer room for it on the Town site, maybe it can go up on our side of the property line.

One of the birds that is definitely on the move is the Belted Kingfisher. Although I didn't mention it in my post yesterday, there were several of these birds moving along the shore and some of the birds that are showing up on the creek here may also be migrants.

Eric Salzman

swallow migration still in progress

I was on Dune Road this morning and was surprised to see hundreds -- no thousands -- of swallows still moving along the outer beach. As far as I could tell, these were all Tree Swallows and mostly young ones at that. It's always a remarkable sight with clouds of birds bouncing up from the dune vegetation and whirling and swirling over the road and marsh.

There weren't many shore birds to be seen even on a falling tide but there was a nice line-up of Yellowlegs on the opposite bank of the inlet at Dockers: about a dozen Lesser Yellowlegs with two or three Greaters for contrast. Also small flocks of Least Sandpipers, some Semipalmated Plovers, a Black-bellied Plover or two, and quite a few egrets of both flavors.

There were a great many butterflies moving along the beach, most of them Painted Ladies (also Monarchs and Cabbage Butterflies). Among the wildflowers in bloom (some of them much frequented by the butterflies) are Smartweed or Water-Pepper (a big stand of it at the little Quogue boardwalk refuge), Knapweed, Canada Thistle (and possible one or more of the other thistles), Pearly Everlasting, Evening Primrose, Salt-marsh Fleabane, and at least two or three of the Goldenrods.

Yes, I did write that I ran outside yesterday in my bathroom (to look at a fox). The question was, did I run out of the bathroom or in my bathrobe. The correct answer is both, in fact!

Eric Salzman

a fox, an Osprey couple and a Whimbrel

The Murder of Crows was crying 'Bloody Murder!' this morning and the huge racket woke me up shortly after dawn. I actually ran out in my bathroom to see what it was all about and, sure enough, a Red Fox came trotting by, seemingly oblivious to both the crows and my presence. If this is the same animal that I saw earlier in the summer, it has certainly improved in appearance as it no longer looks mangy and there is a definite spring in its step.

Two Osprey have occupied the new Nature Conservancy platform on the opposite shore of Weesuck Creek just across from us and one of them was calling consistently for some time early this morning. This was a different and very distinct calling pattern that was not familiar to me and, at first, I wasn't even completely sure that it was coming from an Osprey. These birds are not connected with the nesting pair that raising a young bird on the platform further back in the Pine Neck salt marsh but are undoubtedly part of the Osprey single socials that have been going on in recent weeks. There have been up to five or six birds participating in these rather spectacular events which usually featured one Osprey with a fish flying high and calling loudly. I was speculating at the time that this might lead to a pair formation and that the available platform would then be occupied. It now looks like that is what is happening and the calls are part of what is going on. It's quite common for Osprey to pair up at the end of the summer prior to possible breeding the following spring. They may even start building a nest; we'll see.

Speaking of Whimbrels (I was speaking of several Whimbrel sightings in yesterday's post about Saturday's ELIAS walk at Cupsogue), I could not resist posting Michael Lotito's excellent photographs of a Whimbrel taken last week at Heckscher State Park on the Great South Bay, to the west (not that far away as the Whimbrel flies).

out Cupsogue way

Yesterday morning's ELIAS walk was at Cupsogue by the Moriches Inlet. This is a county park at the west end of Dune Road made up of dunes, marshes, mud & sand flats, islands, ocean and bay. It's popular with beachgoers, boaters and campers but it is also the finest East End site for shorebirds and waterbirds of all sorts. Migration, which has been underway for many weeks now, has slowed down considerably but many species of interest are still around. There are basically two ways to approach the best birding spots. One goes directly from the parking lot through the salt marsh (a muddy trek). The other, adopted for this walk, is to head a short distance west on the sand road at the far end of the Cupsogue parking lot and then follow a trail down the dunes to the bay edge. When you reach the bay (actually the shore of an inlet between the salt marshes and a couple of large spoil islands), you work your way back east, wading across a small stream or two and then the channel itself to reach the flats surrounding the island where many of the birds hang out. This is best accomplished at low tide and the tide was indeed low at about 9:30 yesterday morning.

Probably the #1 sighting (or perhaps fhe ##1, 2 & 3 sightings) were of Whimbrels: two flying over the parking lot at 7:30 am arrival, a single bird in the water near the marshes and another single bird, this one calling and flying low directly overhead as we made our way back along the shore. Another excellent sighting was a probable Long-billed Dowitcher -- a large, fairly bright and well-marked singleton with a very long bill.

Also seen: a small flock of about a dozen Red Knots, small numbers of Black Skimmers and Royal Terns (both including immatures), two Black Terns over the marsh in front of the island, numbers of Common Terns and a very few Least Terns, good views of a Clapper Rail taking a bath in a pool at the edge of the marsh along with three immature Yellow-crowned Night Herons catching crabs and several Saltmarsh Sparrows hopping and darting hither and thither.

There were not huge numbers of shore birds but there was some variety; besides the Dowitcher, Whimbrels and Red Knots there were Am Oystercatchers, a few Willets (including at least one Western Willet), Semipalmated, Piping and Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, at least one Short-billed Dowitcher, Sanderlings, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs (with the latter seemingly outnumbering the former!).

There were several Osprey including one active nest and all four common gull species were present (Great Black-backed, Herring, Laughing and Ring-billed). An odd observation was that of a Ring-bill flying backwards (!) across the surface of the water apparently tracking bait fish. It's sometimes said that hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward but this gull apparently failed to get that information.

There were many Snowy Egrets including one doing a veritable solo dance in the water, an activity more commonly associated with Reddish Egrets. What exactly is the bird doing? Presumably stirring up bait fish in some fashion.

Several Boat-tailed Grackles but few Red-winged Blackbirds and few swallows. The big swallow movement appears to have already gone through. Everything is early this year, even the swallows.

Eric Salzman

tail pumpers

I had a good look at the small flycatcher -- either the same bird as yesterday or another one of the same species -- and it clearly showed its short primaries against a relatively long tail along with a very narrow (almost invisible) eye ring, buffy wing bars and vigorous tail pumping. Although this bird was hunting in the understory of the woodland edge (like an Eastern Wood-Pewee) and not in dense bushes near water (where we see Willow Flycatchers in breeding season), it was certainly a migrant Willow. I've had all of the Eastern Empidonax flycatchers here in migration.

Another flycatcher that turned up this morning was a Great Crested; this is a bird that has bred in these woods (or very nearby) but is also part of the great autumnal migration (flycatchers are typically early migrants). Another tail pumper of the morning was the season's first Prairie Warbler in a feeding flock led by Chickadees; other warblers of the morning were Black-and-whites, Yellowthroats, Northern Waterthrush and American Redstart.

An amusing moment of sorts was provided by a team of Blue Jays striving -- and eventually succeeding -- in driving off a young Green Heron from a tree-top post, apparently taking it for some sort of raptor.

Eric Salzman

Did I say...?

Did I say that the migrants and other followers of feeding flocks always follow chickadees? Yesterday's flock, which included Black-and-white Warbler, Am Redstart and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (new bird for the season) was led by Tufted Titmice. And so was this morning's small group which also included Black-and-white, Common Yellowthroat, Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, House Wren and a young Carolina Wren giving a charming low-key medley of songs in a sort of half voice while it moved with the flock.

Speaking of Carolina Wrens, did I suggest that all the local birds have stopped singing? Well not our Wren Competition Singers who were at it full tilt late this morning, countersinging -- one after the other, each with his own distinctive song -- from each side of the house which seems to divide their territory. Also, Song Sparrows along the edge of the marsh are still singing on territory although quite half-heartedly compared with their spring and summer serenades. The Cardinals all seem too busy with their third (?) broods to bother with music.

There was a flycatcher in the understory of the woods this morning. I initially took it to be an Eastern Wood-Pewee: grayish olive/brown, no eye ring, buffy wing bars, good-sized but with a rather slim, elongated look and a roundish head. But every time this bird landed it pumped its tail up and down several times, suggesting that it was actually a Willow Flycatcher. In spite of what the popular field guides say, the confusion species for Willow Flycatcher around here is not Alder (which almost always shows an eye-ring) but Pewee (which does not). Check for the tail pump and also the primary extension (how far the wing extends against the tail on the perched bird).

I went out to pick Beach Plums this morning (after my morning walk) but not with a lot of success. The few ripening plums and attendant insects did attract all three mimids -- Catbird, Brown Thrasher and Mockingbird -- as well as Song Sparrows, Cedar Waxwings and a few unidentified warblers hiding deep in the bushes (I could hear the chips but could only pick out Common Yellowthroat). There are a number of possible explanations for the crop failure including the low water table and the aftereffects of Hurricane Irene last fall. Wild berries, cherries and acorns are in short supply as well.

Eric Salzman

turtle lover

What is going on here? Well, it's Box Turtle Love! I ran into this lovey-dovey pair this morning and, after taking a bunch of pictures and returning a few times over the next hour or so, I was able to determine that this is a perfectly normal kind of turtle love -- the male on his back attached to the female and both in the happy business of making more turtles (or so we fervently hope). Apparently they can stay in flagrante (the expression certainly fits) for up to three hours and the female has been known to drag the male around.

I should say that, although the male looks helpless in this position, when I approached too close, he was able to 'sit up' quite a bit more, stick out his claws and open his mouth in a very threatening manner. These are not Snapping Turtles but he looked as though he was quite ready to deliver quite a nip.

Later they ended up like this; looks like they've switched positions. Maybe he's guarding here while she lays the now-fertilized eggs! A short while later they were gone and there were few signs of their torpid dalliance.



Eric Salzman

flocks

This is the time of year when the best way to find warblers is to look for feeding flocks or tribes of Black-capped Chickadees. For some reason, visiting warblers (yes, they are well into migration mode) tend to latch on to the chickadees. Perhaps the chickadees, which are locals, know where to find food and the warblers somehow know this. Or perhaps, the chickadees simply stir up insects from the bark and leaves of the trees and make it easier for the warblers to participate in the feast. Oddly enough, this trick doesn't seem to work as well with the Tufted Titmice who also move in small family groups, occasionally attaching themselves to the chickadee flocks as well. Usually there's a Downy Woodpecker or two and often wrens -- Carolina or House -- join in as well, at least temporarily. This habit of feeding in flocks is quite normal in the tropics; here we see it starting in late summer and through the fall and winter. Some birds flock to their kind; typically we see the formation of Common Grackle flocks, Red-wing Blackbird flocks, etc. But other birds ignore conventional wisdom about 'birds of a feather' and move in mixed flocks.

This morning's warblers were all in a small chickadee flock at the head of the marsh: Common Yellowthroat, Black-and-white Warblers, Northern Waterthrush and American Redstart.

Eric Salzman

Advance of the Fungi

Although there have been regular thunderstorms, it has actually been a dry summer with the water table and pond levels at very low levels. There have been various side effect, good and bad: the natural cycle of things has been early by a week or two, there have been few mosquitos and fewer mushrooms.

The big rain on Saturday changed things a bit. Not only did mosquitos return but so did the mushrooms. I found a variety of species including a beautiful purple bolete (which, alas, turned out to be very bitter), a small, fat, perky bolete that was delicious, a burst of Lactarius volemus and lots of chanterelles.

The Lactarius is a very distinctive orange-brown 'milk mushroom' with white gills which exudes white drops that stain the underside of the mushroom and anything else it comes in touch with (your hands included). It is a crunchy, tasty mushroom, our best edible lactarius.

The chanterelle (Yellow Chanterelle or Golden Chanterelle, Cantharellus cibarius; also known by its French name 'girolle') is our best and most abundant edible mushroom; it's a staple of French cuisine and has recently made an appearance in upscale American markets and restaurants (before that you had to gather you own -- as we still do). There are lots of different ways to prepare this delicacy. My son-in-law (who is French) came up with an original recipe: a kind of risotto made with orzo, a type of pasta that resembles rice and can be made into a non-rice risotto also known as orzotto (it turns out that 'orzo' means barley in Italian and the original orzotto was supposed be made from this; however the pasta sold here as orzo is actually semolina which is the normal pasta grain).

Lots of other mushrooms as well including several kinds of russula and various other boletes (boletes are the mushrooms with the spongy bottoms instead of the knife-like gills). The best way to tell an edible mushroom from a non-edible one (commonly called a toadstool) is to know the mushroom -- literally to ID it accurately. Sometimes easier said than done. To my knowledge, there is no good comprehensive illustrated field guide for mushrooms of the northeast and I depend on a combination of European guides (often detailed and beautifully illustrated by artwork but not always accurate for North America), a California guide that I love ("Mushrooms Demystified" by David Aurora; a very smart, amusing, comprehensive volume but with major emphasis on the West Coast and few illustrations), and the odd picture guide (usually full of photographs but invariably incomplete). There are two ancient volumes focused on the northeast that I sometimes refer to; one is the old NY State Mushroom Handbook by Louis Krieger (from the 1920s) and the other is "1000 American Fungi" by Charles McIlvaine (from the turn of the last century). These last two are hopelessly out-of-date as far as scientific classification is concerned and their illustrations are useless but they cover our region in some detail and have useful descriptions which help a lot (also, both have been reprinted and can still be found). Finally there are several web sites that can be consulted -- but I have yet to get the knack of using them for mushroom ID.

Eric Salzman

watching a plant grow

I have been watching a plant in action. The plant in question is a Catbrier (Smilax sp) shoot that first appeared about two weeks ago just off one of my habitual trails and there was a lot more action than you might expect. As I have seen it every morning for a while now, I have been able to track its every move. The Smilax in question actually came out of a earlier shoot that was nipped off -- probably by deer (or I could have broken it off myself on some early pass-through). The new shoot appeared from just below the broken-off stem of the old one and, like the original, it went straight up for a first few days. As with all new growth of this vine, the young shoots are soft but firm enough to defy gravity and they have an asparagus-like tip to which are attached little tendrils that are obviously intended to latch on to anything in its patch. But this was an open area in the woodland understory and there was nothing above to latch on to; this looked like a Smilax that was going nowhere. After a few days of strong upward growth, the shoot began to tip over as if unable to sustain itself in an upright position. Then something remarkable happened: the vine started an amazing circular exploration of the open areas around it. The long shoot, now bent over in a 90 degree L-shape, began to twist to the right as if it were searching for something. In the following few days it continued to revolve in a semi-circle. Yesterday, after revolving in a 270-degree arc, it found the bare twigs of a small, dead bush to latch on to. This was what it was looking for. As of this morning it had began to attach its tendrils to the thin twiggy branches of the bush and to push its forward growth onto this new support, a long extended twist away from its origin by the trail. Thus doth the Catbrier take over the world (or at least the wooded part of it).

Silent marsh this morning. The marsh and the creek were completely void of swallows and martins e although a few Purple Martin high flyers (probably migrating) did appear a little later on. Royal Terns came up the creek and there were high flying Osprey soaring and calling. The on-again/off-again Carolina Wren musical combat, started up again this morning but only half-heartedly compared with the vocal duels of a few weeks ago.

Eric Salzman

on the Peconic Estuary

Yesterday, by chance, I was at two of the most beautiful locations on the East End. One is a private house on a low bluff overlooking Red Creek Pond and Peconic Bay in Squiretown, north of Hampton Bays and just beyond a large area of preserved pine barrens and wetlands in the Hubbard Creek/Red Creek area. The other is the Salm estate in North Sea over looking Scallop Pond, Cow Neck, Peconic Bay and sitting in the middle of a largely undeveloped area of woodlands, wetlands and farmland still owned by the Salm family. The house itself consists of two restored old farmhouses now joined together plus outbuildings. Scallop Pond is a Nature Conservancy preserve connected to salt water by a complicated estuarine system that eventually exits into Peconic Bay at Sebonac Inlet (not far from where NYC mayor Bloomberg just purchased an old estate). The whole area is one of the best preserved parts of the East End and the Salms, always great preservationists and conservationists, have played a major role in keeping it that way. The occasion for the visit was a benefit for the Peconic Baykeeper. By a nice coincidence, Kevin McAllister, the director of the Peconic Baykeeper, keeps the Baykeeper boat on Little Weesuck Creek just opposite us in East Quogue. McAllister is one of the great defenders of our beleaguered waterways and wetlands (the South Shore as well as the Peconic system) and the organization deserves all the support it can get. Yes, this is a plug; is the web site.

The whole run of the north-facing shore of the South Fork -- actually starting far west of the Shinnecock Canal at the mouth of the Peconic River and continuing east through the Flanders marshes, the Hubbard and Red Creek areas, Squiretown and Squires Pond, Sebonac and North Sea, all the way to Jessup's Neck (the Morton Refuge) and the Sag Harbor wetlands and even beyond into the north slope of East Hampton Town -- constitutes a single biome or environmental unit. The Ronkonkoma moraine is here invaded by salt water and itself has a high water table with fresh water oozing or flowing out from underneath. The moraine which itself is eroded in places, forming high bluffs that overlook the bay and are surrounded by ponds and wetlands as well as sandy/pebbly beaches created by erosion from the bluffs. The whole is a major part of a grand estuary and closely connected to the Peconic Bay system and all its subsidiary bays. Although neither Cow Neck nor the Salm homestead is open to the public there are public roads in the area including a dirt road that goes west from Scott Road in North Sea to Scallop Pond.

I got out for a nice walk yesterday and briefly this morning before the deluge but there was little to report. An Eastern Phoebe was working the bushy edge between the woods and the marsh. Swallows and martins were active yesterday but entirely out of sight this morning -- the first morning that I did not see anything of these aerial acrobats since the early spring.

Eric Salzman

a ruckus of Kingfishers

A ruckus of Kingfishers yesterday afternoon started me thinking: what was that all about? Generally Belted Kingfishers appear one at a time, announcing themselves with their signature rattle. They like to land on perches overlooking the pond, checking out the bait fish that go in and out on the tides. Generally one Kingfish or a pair 'owns' the creek, chasing away any intruders that might show up. Every year in late August there used to be a flurry of such chases which I always attributed to the appearance of migrants coming through. Now I'm not so sure.

Kingfishers nest in tunnels which they dig in sand banks. For many years, our local pair nested on the edge of an old sand mine in the hills just to the north of East Quogue with a small colony of Bank Swallows. That mine ('East Coast Mines') has greatly expanded its operations and, although, it is no longer accessible to curious birdwatchers, I had the impression that the nest site was gone; for a year or two, there were no Kingfishers patrolling Weesuck Creek on a regular basis. This year though there was a definite comeback and, in fact, the patrolling bird was, after the early spring, always a male. This strongly suggested to me that the female was at the nest sitting on eggs or brooding the young.

Yesterday afternoon, at about 2 pm, two or three birds (it sounded like more) came into the woods just outside our porch making a lot of kingfisher noise -- something like a New Year's Eve rattle. These birds would land in the trees -- usually in a dense corner of a Pitch Pine where they were high up and quite hidden. But they gave away their locations with a soft, uneven, continuous version of the signature rattle. These birds were extremely wary and, if I tried to approach their hiding tree, they would fly off to another tree yet further back in the woods or further down along the shore -- rattling away all the while.

Flying into the woods in twos and threes, hiding in the upper branches of a dense Pitch Pine and then giving away the location by calling -- none of this suggests an invasion by alien kingfishers. These were not intruders but rather young fledglings only recently out of the nest and on the wing. They come out of the nest hole after a long adolescence spent in the dark and they come flying out of a longish tunnel. By then they look almost like adults but their behavior gives them away. They are, I suspect, still being fed by the adults who must find them in their tree hideouts by following the sound of the rattles. As for me, I'll drink a glass to the return of breeding Belted Kingfishers to Weesuck Creek!

Eric Salzman

room for an Osprey platform?

Aaron Virgin of the Group for the East End came over this morning to look at possible sites for an Osprey platform somewhere in our marsh. He is a birder and picked up on a Black-and-white Warbler -- not on the marsh but at the head of our marsh trail; it was the first of the season that I've seen. Unlike yesterday morning, there was no obvious migratory movement today but the birds put on a good show for Aaron. There were at least four Green Herons with both adults and young of the year. When I first came round to the pond, an adult Green Heron jumped up with a series of yelps and shrieks, well beyond the usual and familiar Green Heron call. It was perhaps a warning cry to the other Green Herons in the area that some sort of dangerous monster was approaching; at any rate, three other calling birds came streaking by, one after the other. This is surely a family of adults with newly fledged young. When Aaron arrived there was a Northern Waterthrush trying to chase away an immature Green Heron from its perch on a small dead cedar sticking out the marsh where it was drying off in the sun. The day had turned from wet and misty to dry and sunny. Also, as we stood by the pond, a Belted Kingfisher came in and there was a Forster's Tern flying up and then down the creek.
Northern Waterthrushes continue all around the periphery of the marsh along with a few Yellowthroats. The Cardinals and the Carolina Wrens are working on their third (if not fourth!) broods of noisy youngsters. As I sit here on the porch writing this, I can see and hear a male Baltimore Oriole, still in top plumage, feeding in the big hickory out the window along with a loose flock of Red-wings and Common Grackles. There are also Blue Jays in the neighborhood including one with a naked, featherless black head -- a strange looking creature indeed, victim of either some malady or a genetic problem.

I haven't been keeping up with the butterflies but there are Spicebush Swallowtails around along with a fair number of Monarchs.

Eric Salzman

between the drops

Between the thunderstorms, there was a sunrise this morning and as I headed down to the water there was a rainbow above the marsh. Where there's a rainbow there must be sun but there also must be rain and, as it turned out, there was a lot more rain headed our way. But there was avian activity between the storms and because almost all of it was right at the 'front line' -- the row of trees and shrubs facing east -- it suggested a modest migratory movement. When the migrants arrive in the fall, the 'front line' is usually where they drop in and there were numbers of Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers and Northern Waterthrushes plus at least three Empid flycatchers, and at least two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. The Empids were grayish-olive with narrow but distinct eye-rings and, based on structure; I would say that they were all Alders (Least are smaller and dumpier in their big-headed look and generally have a more prominent eye-ring; Willow, the local breeder, is browner and shows little or no eyering). Two of these Empids had white wingbars; one, presumably a young bird, had buffy wingbars but I think they were all the same species. In with these migrants were local birds: Downy Woodpeckers, Song Sparrows, quite a few Red-winged Blackbirds and both House and Carolina Wrens. Song Sparrows are still singing; nearly everyone else -- even the Carolina Wrens -- have shut up.

Along with the migrants bouncing around in the shrubs, bushes and low tree limbs, there was a swarm of swallows and martins over the marsh. The martins may have been an assemblage of Purple Martins from the area but the swallows -- Barn and Tree as far as I could see -- were almost certainly migrants.

The terns flying up the creek these days are mostly Royal and Forster's these days. I haven't seen or heard a Common here in a while and only a single Least Tern. Least Terns are still feeding young on Dune Road but the Commons (which seem to have had a poor season) have left all their breeding sites.

There are juvenile Goldfinches with buffy wingbars around. Jean Held points out that the best-known mneumonic of the Goldfinch call is "per-chicory" (not, as I had it, "potato chip"). That's true but I doubt that, as she says, 'chicory' is a favorite food of these birds. The classic Goldfinch feed is thistle (and, of course, the niger seeds, widely used in feeders and, in a marketing ploy, dubbed 'thistle seed' by the producers to imply that they attract goldfinches). Around here Goldfinches feed on Marsh Elder or High Tide Bush which, like thistle, is a late season plant.

Eric Salzman

the 'potato chip' bird and a 'new' warbler

Every morning when I go down to the creek, there is a American Goldfinch flying along between the woods and the water -- easy to identify with its bounding flight and its flight calls: "potato chip, potato chip, potato". Sometimes it is flying in one direction, sometimes the opposite way. Earlier in the year, I often saw this species feeding but recently I only see it in flight -- as it seems to make its daily migration between feeding and nesting (?) sites.

There are little troupes of Chickadees that make the rounds every day and they are worth checking to see what's moving with them. This morning there was a Yellow Warbler and an American Redstart, the first of the season down here (Redstarts breed on the north shore of both the North and South Forks but not around here). The Northern Waterthrushes and Common Yellowthroats are still here so that adds up to four warblers. Also joining the troupes -- at least from time to time -- are one or two Downy Woodpeckers and the two wrens, House and Carolina. I also heard the call of a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher but couldn't catch a glimpse.

Eric Salzman

SoFo Field Trip on Dune Road

This morning's SoFo field trip on Dune Road, Shinnecock Bay, started at 8 am at the Shinnecock Inlet in heavy, overcast weather and ended at the Quogue Boardwalk some time shortly after noon and shortly before the rain hit. The weather and the weather forecast ('scattered thunderstorms') held down the number of participants but there were advantages as well: cooler weather, diffused light, light beach traffic, few dog walkers chasing up the birds, a very manageable group jumping in and out of a few cars.

We had good looks at a variety of birds, both locals and migrants passing through: Osprey, gulls of the usual flavors (Herring, Great Black-backed and one or two Ring-billed), Great and Snowy Egrets, Double-crested Cormorant, Common and Least Terns, Piping Plover, Am Oystercatcher, Willets, Great Blue Heron, Royal Terns, Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, Killdeer, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstone, Short-billed Dowitcher and Sandlering. Migrating swallows were everywhere with Tree Swallows dominant and Barn and a few Bank mixed in; except for a few local Barn Swallows, they were almost all heading south (or, more precisely, northeast to southwest). Clapper Rails were calling in the high Spartina but remained invisible. Some numbers of Red-winged Blackbirds and Boat-tailed Grackles -- including young and females -- were in evidence; very few Common Grackles.

Easily the best bird of the day was a small, flat-headed Ammodramus sparrow perched on some reeds that was (understandably) called as a Saltmarsh Sparrow but, on closer examination, lacked the usual strong orange tints on its face (only a very light buffy color) and had no visible breast streaking (there was only a small central spot on the breast). It almost certainly was a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW, the only Ammodramus with a clear breast (the breast spot being probably irrelevant as a field mark). Grasshoppers are known to start to move in August and Spartina marshes are a form of grassland so it was not so far-fetched to find this bird on Dune Road in mid-August.

Eric Salzman

antlers vs. horns: a clarification

Mike Bottini, whose communications are invaluable, has written me again about a recent post dealing with deer. Antlers and horns, he points out, are not the same thing (I had used the two terms as if they were interchangeable). Antlers -- as in deer -- are shed annually and are restricted to males. Horns -- as in sheep, goats, cattle, antelope -- have a different structure; they are permanent and are sometimes found in both males and female. He also points out that, at this time of the year, male deer or bucks tend to hang out with other males while the females associate with other does as well as their offspring. So our recent visitors are two males, an older guy with a huge rack and a younger buck with small antlers. Glad to get all that straightened out.

Rocky Jr. was back on his Pitch Pine post yesterday, sleeping on his back (!), with his feet up in the air, his head lolling to one side and his stripy tail curved under. One might have thought he was a dead raccoon except this is his favorite sleeping post and I've seen him in all kinds of positions. A truly sad note: a dead Box Turtle on the old right-of-way, apparently hit by a car that used that access road. Hopefully, our Box Turtle population is still large enough to absorb some losses.

Warm, heavy, partially overcast morning. Instead of clearing up however, the wind shifted to the southeast and a dense overcast sky promised stormy weather; a very heavy storm came in the early afternoon and then passed. I'm doing a SoFo field trip tomorrow morning starting at Shinnecock Inlet at 8 am but the weather has to cause some concern. If it's just overcast (as opposed to heavy rain), it will be a go.

Today's herons: Great Blue and Green, both in the marsh; the Green is especially active, very shy, very noisy and surprisingly flighty. What is going on? Spotted Sandpiper in the pond and Northern Waterthrush calling in several locations. Otherwise things are pretty quiet. The Purple Martins are mostly gone and there are few swallows. Young Red-wings congregated into flocks a few days ago and they are mostly gone as well. Small flocks of Common Grackles still in the neighborhood.

Eric Salzman

flowering of the marsh

Two flowering plants in the marsh: Sea Lavender (coming up and blooming all over the muddy edges) and Salt-marsh Aster. Sea Lavender, also called Marsh Rosemary, is in the genus Limonium; our local species is either L. nashii or L. carolinianum; we're right on the border between the two species and the differences are fairly technical. Again, with Salt-marsh Aster -- just beginning to bloom -- there are two species; the one in our marsh is probably the Large or Perennial Salt-marsh Aster, Aster tennifolius. The flowers are mostly white but some have a noticeable purple tinge (the Sea Lavender flowers are tiny but definitely purple/lavender in color). Like almost everything else, these late summer flowers are a week or two early.

The two Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, old and young, were back this morning along with Green Herons. Strangely enough, the Green Herons were much more skittish, calling loudly and taking off long before I even came near. The Night-Herons were reluctant to move from their favored spot in the pond and, when they did finally move, went no further than the other end of the pond.

Judging by the loud chips, there are more than two Northern Waterthrushes in the area. Someone questioned my statement yesterday that Northern Waterthrushes do not breed on Long Island. The only waterthrush with breeding records for Long Island is the Louisiana (a scarce breeder on the North Shore) but the Northern is a very common migrant and typically appears here in midsummer and apparently hangs out a while before moving on to more tropical climes. Common Yellowthroats are either scattering around the place or new birds have appeared; there were a couple just outside the kitchen window this morning. No sign of any other warblers as yet.

Eric Salzman

birds of midsummer

The birds of midsummer are now regulars: Royal Tern, Northern Waterthrush, Belted Kingfisher, Least Sandpiper. There are two Green Herons around and they seem to be both adults; no evidence of young ones yet. At least two Waterthrushes, one at the pond, the other at the head of the marsh (Northern Waterthrush is a migrant that does not breed on Long Island but appears here every year in midsummer).

There are young Red-bellied Woodpeckers around, one with some red on the nape, another with none (male & female juveniles?). Large numbers of young Red-winged Blackbirds -- dozens if not hundreds -- were all over the edges of the marsh yesterday; today there were none at all.

Eric Salzman

night to morning

At the fall of darkness on these early August days, the air is filled with a remarkable cacophony: the chorus of katydids forming an outlandish web of sound. I don't recall ever hearing so many katydids calling at once and because the weather has been so warm, they call at a rapid rate and in a complex counterpoint of rhythms that truly livens up the night. The individual insects may be restricted to rather regular beats, slightly different versions of "katy-katy" "katydid, katydidn't" or even "katydid, katydidnot". But when dozens of individual calls overlap in constantly changing cycles, the result is a kind of fractal audio pattern of intersecting, seemingly random rhythms. Insect rock'n'roll!

When Juliette's friend Anna was visiting a few days ago, she discovered an all-green 'praying mantis' on the wicker couch in the porch. Or did she say grasshopper? But it was not a mantis, nor exactly a grasshopper but one of our katydids. Katydids are close relatives of grasshoppers but they are in a separate family all their own and they are definitely green.

The katydid din is at its maximum at the beginning of the night and seems to fall away gradually as the night progresses. After a while, there are no more katydids to be heard, only some of the longer and higher pitched insects of the night. Just before dawn -- even as the first light begins to glow -- the Screech Owl chimes in with his shivery trills. At least there was one calling this morning less than an hour before sunrise.

An adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was back in the pond at low tide this morning accompanied by a young bird -- almost certainly a young of the year (and not the rather neater first-year immature). In the mammal department there was a Red Fox in the reeds at the edge of the marsh and it may have been a different animal than the one seen earlier on; it was also small and young-looking but in a much neater and well-groomed pelage. Rocky Raccoon (or perhaps Rocky Jr.) was back at his sleeping post in the crotch of the big old pitch pine on the old right-of-way; he has been there quite regularly this spring and summer, sometimes as often as three or four times a week. And the big male deer, the one with a huge rack of antlers, was back with his companion, a smaller animal with short horns that may or may not be a doe.

Eric Salzman

crab eaters

This morning there was a Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in the open water in the middle of the marsh and another one perched in a Red Cedar by the shore of the pond. This was later in the morning than usual (I had an early morning errand so I didn't get to do an abbreviated morning walk until after a late breakfast). I didn't expect to see night-herons at mid-morning even on an overcast day. However the daily routine of these birds is as much about the tides as it is about the time of day and I think the appeal of these tidal ponds for Nyctanassa violacea is the presence of small Blue Claw Crabs, a known favorite of this species. I often see bits and pieces of the crabs scattered around (on the dock next door, on the banks of the pond and nearby shore, even on one of our chairs by the pond); they are apparently the remains of night-heron dinners. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and the ever-present Green Heron are both local nesters somewhere here on the north side of the bay; most of the other herons and other water birds nest on the opposite side near the ocean, most often in or near the bay islands and often in colonies.

Eric Salzman

young birds abounding

There were two Forster's Terns in non-breeding plumage fishing in the creek this morning along with a Common Tern. As with the Royal Terns (which are also around), the pair consisted of a young bird following an adult; apparently the youngsters learn how to fish by following the adult's example. The comparison with the Common Tern was striking. Even apart from the obvious differences (the Forsters' in non-breeding plumage has a white head with a black eye patch), the comparison was striking: Forster's is bigger with much whiter primaries and a very different, stockier jizz.

Extremely low tide in the early morning left our tidal pond as one big mud flat. The few remaining pools of water were dominated by a Great Blue Heron which was finding easy pickings among the fish trapped in these pools. An adult and a young Spotted Sandpiper and a couple of Least Terns completed the picture.

Young birds abound. Three young orioles, at least two of them orangey males, were working the trees near the head of the marsh. A strangely ventriloqual chip was coming from a densely vegetated area while an adult Song Sparrow with a large insect in its beak gave away the identity and the age of the hidden young chipper. An adult Downy Woodpecker was moving through the hurricane-blasted trees near the head of the marsh accompanied by a juvenile and there is at least one juvenile Red-bellied Woodpecker in the area (it has a rather blank-faced look with very little red on the nape). Young Titmice and Chickadees are everywhere, moving in family groups with their elders. And a few of the late-flying fledglings in the Purple Martin colony are starting to fly and hunt on their own.

Eric Salzman

SOFO & ELIAS Get-together

The South Fork Natural History Society (SOFO) and Eastern Long Island Audubon Society (ELIAS) held an historic joint walk this morning at the SOFO Museum and I had the privilege of leading the walk around Vineyard Field -- the large recovering pasture or meadow in back of the museum on the Bridgehampton/Sag Harbor Turnpike. It was very well attended with perhaps two dozen participants. Among them were Eileen Schwinn, president of ELIAS, Dai Dayton, president of the Friends of the LI Greenbelt (which manages the field), Frank Quevedo, director of SOFO, and my daughter Eva Salzman, a poet who often writes about natural history on Eastern LI).

This area specializes in birds that like to live at the edge or ecotone between woodlands and open meadows. The optimum time for a visit is probably early to mid-spring when migrants are passing through and the local birds are all singing. By early August, many birds have shut down for the season, their nesting activities having come to an end. They have either moved on or, if they are still in the area, have become inconspicuous.

There was one major exception and it is one of our most sought-after birds and still a fairly uncommon species around here: the Indigo Bunting. Some buntings are inconspicuous sparrowy birds but that's not the Indigo Bunting. The male of the species is a spectacular blue of a deep indigo color that, in the right light, can seem to shimmer (ironically, the female is one of the plainest of birds and the males lose their spectacular plumage in migration and winter). Since the males only hold this plumage in breeding season and since the Vineyard Field was full of singing birds -- more Indigo Buntings than I have ever seen in a single place -- it would seem to be the case that Indigo Bunting breeding season in Bridgehampton is not yet over!

Did we see any female Indigo Buntings? Any youngsters? Nests? Of course not. But it was a remarkable show of male Indigo Buntingness: perhaps a dozen or more displaying and singing both in the trees around the edges and on the top of small bushes in the meadow. Sometimes there were chases that looked like territorial disputes. How territorial is the Indigo Bunting? It's a good question worthy of further investigation. In any case, the singing males were always perched high or in the open, anxious to broadcast their vocal and visual assets to the world. I don't know of another place on Long Island where it is possible to see these birds so easily and dramatically. The whole field was like an exploded lek -- a field of display for male birds.

There were other birds of course. Green Heron and Purple Martin flying overhead, Eastern Kingbird in the meadow, Barn Swallows around the buildings (with active nests and second broods under the eaves), Carolina Wrens singing away here and there, House Wren, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler, Chipping Sparrow (including streaky young birds), Baltimore Oriole (female and an immature male), lots of Catbirds, Mockingbirds, Cardinals. Among the area's specialties that were missed: Orchard Oriole, Blue-winged Warbler, Red-winged Blackbird (huh?), Tree Swallow, and Eastern Bluebird, all of which were here earlier in the season. Next time!

P.S.: Summer is an optimum time for butterflies and dragonflies in a meadow like this one with several wet spots. The butterfly list included Monarchs, Tiger Swallowtail, American Copper and others. Among the dragonflies I could identify Halloween Pennant, Banded Pennant and a whitetail (Common Whitetail according to Frank Quevedo). A great place to study the insects of summer.

Eric Salzman

an orange August moon

A startling moonrise last night. A giant orange full moon was reflected in the creek as it rose over Pine Neck making a truly magical spectacle. As the moon continued to rise and turned from orange to white, it created a flood of clear moonlight over the landscape.

In spite of the promise of that August moon, this morning was heavily overcast with high humidity. No moon, no sun, no sky and only a hazy visibility through the thick wet muggy air. That didn't stop the Royal Terns that were noisily flying up and down the creek, each adult always accompanied by a calling immature bird. The tide has circled around to early morning lows and there were both Spotted Sandpipers (adult and an immature) and a few Least Sandpipers working the mud.

I startled a Carolina Wren (in a spot where I don't usually see this species) singing an elaborate and tuneful medley only to discover that there were two birds involved. Perhaps this highly elaborated version of the wren's normal song is a courtship serenade after all. Also heard a Yellow Warbler song -- rare at this time of the year -- and actually saw a female of the species at the head of the marsh. No sign of yesterday's swifts and swallows which apparently have moved on (the few Barn Swallows in view were probably locals that have not yet moved on out).

Eric Salzman

Swifts, squawks and chanterelles

There were at least half a dozen Chimney Swifts over the marsh and adjacent woods this morning along with a small flock of swallows that included all the common species: Barn, Bank, Rough-winged and Tree, not to mention Purple Martins. This flock, strongly suggestive of migrating birds, was hunting in big semi-circles before disappearing in mid-morning.

Later this morning, a horrible squawk, repeated at least twice, sent me running down to the water. I put up an Osprey and a Great Egret from the trees in front of the pond but I doubt that either of these birds was responsible for the noise. Oddly enough, there were the remains of a Blue Claw Crab on one of the sitting chairs set up by the pond. My guess is that one of the herons -- possibly a Great Blue or a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron -- had picked out the crab from the pond, landed on the chair and was working on the crab when it was scared off by the arrival of the Osprey; as it (the heron not the Osprey) flew off, it dropped a crab claw and a bit of shell in its haste to get away. Just a guess.

I finally succeeded in finding enough Canterellus cibarius -- otherwise known as Chanterelles, Golden Chanterelles or Girolles -- for a meal. In spite of the fact that we have had some heavy thunderstorms, there has actually not been enough rain to kickstart mushroom season. The one exception has been the Chicken Mushroom, Laetiporus sulphureus (formerly known as Polyporus sulphureus); I've found three or four of them already but hardly any other mushrooms have appeared so far this season.

Eric Salzman

Osprey sushi and Mysteries of the Dock

When the tide is high in the early morning, there's often something big perched in the trees back of the pond that takes off when it sees me sauntering down the path. Yesterday it was Yellow-crowned Night-Herons. This morning it was an Osprey with a fish in its talons. It took off clutching its prey and headed across the creek to enjoy an undisturbed morning sushi dinner. A lot of fish are being caught right in the creek these days and I suspect that most of them are Blue Snappers -- i.e. baby Bluefish.

Every morning on the dock by the outflow from the pond I find the remains of someone's meal. This morning it was a neatly eviscerated Blue Claw Crab, author unknown. Also on the dock I regularly see a pellet which appears to be something that some animal has regurgitated. I looks a bit like an owl pellet except that it is almost always studded with what look like seeds. Perhaps it is scat -- i.e. ejected from the back end of an animal's digestive system rather than the front. I have seen these regularly over the years and am still stumped as to what it is.

Birds at the head of the marsh this morning included a young Eastern Towhee, a fledging House Wren begging from an adult (by shivering its wings), several Common Yellowthroats (both adults and young seen) and a singing Red-eyed Vireo.

Eric Salzman