East End Faunathon 2014

The 2014 East End Faunathon results are in. There were 43 participants in 17 teams on Faunathon day, May 18th, and they found over 200 species of butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles and amphibians, mammals and birds in the 5 East End towns. More than 3/4 of the species observed were birds -- 157 different kinds to be exact and the list included Bald Eagle, Broad-winged Hawk, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Cliff Swallow, Common Raven, Summer Tanager and a bunch of others almost as good. A new reptile was an Italian Wall Lizard, an introduced species that has been spreading eastward on LI. Gray Seal was also new in the mammal department; these are wintering seals hanging around into spring and perhaps beginning to breed off the coast. The butterfly list included Eastern Pine Elfin and Red-spotted Purple (my personal best contribution to the day) while the dragonfly list had, among others, Springtime Darner and Painted Skimmer. As usual, the organizing genius behind the Faunathon was Steve Biasetti of the Group for the East End and if you write him at you can get a detailed account of the results.

Eric Salzman