"Why you Y___=b___ Flycatcher, you"

We went to a wedding at the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett in the middle of Friday's ferocious storm. The worst of it had let up as we emerged from the festivities at c. 10 pm when we were surrounded by a veritable symphonic storm of trilling Tree Frogs (Northern Grays?) in all the trees around the club parking lot and only lightly  punctuated by a few laggard Spring Peepers. I wonder if there was an emergence of Eastern Spadefoot Toads anywhere; heavy rainfall is what brings them out. The Tree Frogs certainly liked the weather!

After that hurricane-like storm, I hoped to see some wind-blown strays but yesterday's haul was just an expanded version of the regulars: all our local breeders coming up for air and nourishment, plus an extra or two: all three warblers (Yellowthroat, Yellow and Pine), a female Eastern Towhee, a male Belted Kingfisher, a Glossy Ibis wheeling just a few feet over my head. With all the standing dead wood, this place has become woodpecker heaven. Downy Woodpeckers -- one very mobile bird or perhaps two or three scattered drummers -- have found some very resonant dead tree limbs for their percussion solos. The two Fish Crows that I wrote about yesterday were on duty again in their usual spot and I even heard one of them call a Fish Crow call.

We have a Tufted Titmouse nest in a split oak cavity and I was worried that it might have been flooded out -- the opening appears to face straight up and would seem to have been open to yesterday's heavy rains. But no, the first thing I saw this morning was an adult leaving the nest carrying a fecal sac. You couldn't ask for a better sign that at least some of the young titmice have survived!

The pond hit low tide in the early afternoon and neither the pondmaster (Willy Willet) nor the Snowy Egret made any serious attempt to flee on my arrival. The Willet did set up a bit of a racket but soon quieted down and the birds resumed their previous activities, both coming to the edge of the pond within a few feet of where I was sitting. I could watch the egret stirring up the mud with its golden slippers and then nabbing the worms that it had disturbed. The Willet spent most of the time preening and bathing but eventually went to feed as well, coming up with the catch of the day: a big wiggler of a worm which he quickly dispatched.

A warm, dewy Sunday morning produced a Empid flycatcher which I'm certain was a late migrant. This olive-green bird had a very well defined eye-ring and equally well-defined wing markings, a short (or short-to-medium) primary extension and, best of all, a yellow belly. It was that most uncommon (and often latest) of the Eastern Empids, the YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER on its way to the boreal bogs where it breeds.

Eric Salzman