Halloween in July

There's a family of Hairy Woodpeckers making the rounds. I've heard the calls several times but finally got a look at the birds. One of them is a young bird and when I first saw it, I thought it was Downy as it doesn't have the full-sized bill of the adults. However the two adults were nearby and calling loudly; the single loud PEEK, quite different from the calls of the Downy, is the giveaway. We now have all four local woodpeckers -- Hairy, Downy, Red-bellied and Flicker
-- in residence. The only other woodpecker that comes around these parts is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which is a winter visitor and regular migrant. Alas, the big Pileated Woodpecker is virtually unknown on LI. Maybe now that we have so much dead and dying standing woodpecker wood, it will deign to pay us a visit.

There were two White-breasted Nuthatches at a neighbor's feeder this morning raising hopes that there might some breeding activity in that department.

Carl Safina writes me that shorebird migration is already in full swing at his Lazy Point perch with flocks of birds heading west. Have to go down to Tiana Beach or Cupsogue, not only to look for the Elegant Tern and other reported vagrants but also to see what can be seen in the way of shorebird migration.

Good looks at a Halloween Pennant perched in the bushes at the edge of the marsh. This is a species that I associate with open meadows but it also turns up here at the edge of the marsh. What is a Halloween Pennant, did I hear someone ask? It's very distinctive dragonfly with yellow/orange black-striped wings.

Eric Salzman