a new bird

Yesterday, with a cold front moving in, I wondered what the morrow would bring. Well it brought in a new bird for this East Quogue/Weesuck Creek property. This was a lone     RUSTY BLACKBIRD sitting right out in the open on top of the lone Pitch Pine on the bank of our pond next to the marsh next to the creek. It was making a steady, creaky call -- which is what called it to my attention in the first place. This was a grayish, female-plumaged bird with a beady pale eye and a small, slightly decurved bill. Sibley says the females hold this plumage only through August so perhaps this was an immature bird. Not counting a couple of stray parakeets and eliminating the two Little Egret sightings as possible aberrant Snowies, the Rusty makes 239 species for the place.

A sparrow with broad gray eyebrows and well-defined breast streaks was a LINCOLN'S SPARROW, only the second one I've ever seen here. Also seen: White-throated, Swamp and Song Sparrows as well as Dark-eyed Junco, and Eastern Towhee. Two Brown Thrashers have been here for several weeks; I hear them more than I actually see them.

There were good numbers of Yellow-rumped Warblers all along the front row of trees and bushes facing east and they were mixed in with Pine Siskins and a few Goldfinches. All three feed on the same seeds, they all flash yellow. and the warblers and siskins both have breast streaking (surprisingly enough, the Yellow-rumps are actually slightly larger than the siskins and goldfinches which are about the same size!).

Two birds that arrived in some numbers were Eastern Phoebes (all along the front range but also widespread in the woods and even by the house) and White-breasted Nuthatches (which are getting almost as common as the Red-breasted). On the other hand, the two kinglets, Ruby-crowned and Golden-crowned, have seemingly vanished; did they just move out with the onset of colder weather? A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was working methodically on a Pitch Pine -- presumably in order to suck some sap; Pitch Pine sap is delicious stuff!

A surprising sight was a Merlin chasing a Red-winged Blackbird; the blackbird seems rather large to be suitable prey for the falcon. On the flip side of this, a handful of crows were dive bombing a Red-tailed Hawk that was trying to climb up the thermals over Pine Neck. Eventually it managed to shake off its tormentors by spiraling high and then sliding down and away.

Eric Salzman