Fish Crows and foot massage

I don't know if the Tufted Titmice nesting made it through all the rainstorms of recent days but a flock of Black-capped Chickadees, consisting of a dozen or so birds, was almost certainly a family group. The other nesting success is American Crow; I can hear the begging waaahs of the young ones as I write this (more on crows below). Common Yellowthroats continue to sing in widely separated locations; one at the edge of the marsh (where I have seen a female as well) and the other at the opposite side of the property. A Brown Thrasher continues to sing intermittently from a high perch and the Downy Woodpeckers are still at it with their loud, fast raps. Green Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron and both egrets are regular visitors.

I was a little premature announcing a second pair of Osprey on the creek. These two birds appeared to begin to construct a dummy nest (or 'practice nest' or nest foundation) on an empty platform on the opposite side of the creek but, after laying down a few twigs, they have seemingly stopped work. Since the heavy rains of recent days, the noisy active Osprey courting activities of the past couple of weeks seem to have stopped altogether.

In answer to the question if the Sag Harbor Fish Crows are active right now, Penny Moser tells me that every time the door opened at her reflexology session in Sag Harbor, she could hear the giveaway caw of Fish Crow! She also reports that, in feeding birds in the Mt. Misery area of Sag Harbor for the past three decades she has rarely seen any crows at all but she now sees American Crows. She also reports that, as she drove through the village the other day, there was much Fish Crow cawing and puddle-bathing. From various sources, I am beginning to suspect that the appearance of any crows at all in Sag Harbor is a fairly recent phenomenon but that both species have invaded in numbers. Fish Crows may not make big inroads on the South Shore bays and beach but they obviously have reached the shores of the inner bays.

Eric Salzman