nesters?

I was down at the pond and into the marsh at an early hour this morning and as I was scanning the open water area in the middle, I saw what looked like a strange duck swimming across. As it reached a shallow area and started to walk, I realized that it was no duck but something even better: a Clapper Rail. After some desultory picking -- catching insects I assume -- it crossed to an open mud bank where it sunned itself for a few minutes and then proceeded to do its toilette for 20" or so before it suddenly disappeared after I turned head for a moment. A Clapper Rail in the last week of June and considering previous sightings and sounds -- at one point I saw two rails -- makes the likelihood of nesting extremely high. We had a Virginia Rail nesting that produced a single chick some years back and Clappers nested in the Pine Neck marsh last year but, if it is really happening, this is a new record for our side.

A young Eastern Phoebe accompanied by an adult was at its previous location near a neighbor's house (where I think it nested somewhere under the building's multiple eaves). The Phoebe and the White-breasted Nuthatch are, as far as I know, both new nesters in our area.

Royal Terns were on the creek this morning and they are being reported from many areas all the way from Brooklyn to Great Gull Island in the Sound off Orient Point. Something is going on here and I would expect nesting evidence from somewhere in the very near future. Ditto Forster's Terns, also part of the expansion of southern species into our area.

Eric Salzman