an uncommon visitor

A breeding-plumaged Tricolored Heron (ex Louisiana Heron) on the pond this morning! The bird was trotting up and back in or near the neck of the pond at low tide and presumably catching fish. I sent Eileen Schwinn a quick e-mail and she came over. The bird seemed to have disappeared from the neck of the pond but as we worked the pond edge, it reappeared right in the middle, nicely posing for its portrait. The two strange objects sticking out from the sides of the bird's head in the top photo are its nuptial plumes (they're also visible in the other photo but in the more usual position behind the head).

Derek Rogers of the Nature Conservancy tells me that there was one on Pine Neck this morning as well but due to some discrepancy in the timing, it is not quite clear if there were two birds or one bird shuttling back and forth. There have been reports of this species from Dune Road in the past few days and I even saw one in distant flight last weekend so there is the possibility that Tricolored Herons are on the move.

The morning was further enlivened by the Red-eyed Vireo's persistent calls and the very un-persistent call of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo (it actually called twice with that characteristic gulping slowdown that marks the species). Both these birds turn up regularly in the spring and both breed in the Pine Barrens but I have never had any evidence that either one breeds down here. The Tricolored Heron is an occasional breeder in mixed heronries on Western Long Island but it is decidedly uncommon to the East and has not, to my knowledge, ever bred on Eastern Long Island.

Eric Salzman