a foggy morning in East Quogue Town

A foggy morning.

The American Goldfinches have discovered our thistle thicket which is in full bloom and starting to go to seed. Goldfinches are known for their predilection for thistle seed. They are also notoriously late nesters, probably because of the higher availability of seeds in mid and late summer. The birds that I spook from the thistles seem to be a male-female pair so they may be getting ready to nest (or perhaps already feeding young on the small thistle seeds}.

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird on our Red Cedar nest is another late nester but her babies are growing very quickly. I check it every morning and hope to have more videos soon.

The Blue Jays have suddenly become raucous after weeks of quiet. One early morning squawking session was serious enough to attract at least four Flickers, some Chickadees.
Robins and other birds. I spent a lot of time searching for an owl in the adjacent pine and oak trees towards which their anger seemed to be displayed but without finding anything. If, as is likely, the Jays have fledgling young, they are probably being defensive but against what I cannot say. There were no Crows in the neighborhood (Blue Jays don't like marauding crows for good reasons) so that wasn't it. Perhaps a ground predator (cat or fox) invisible to me. Or maybe just a falling out of some sort among the Jays themselves. 

Speaking of ground predators, I saw one this morning. The advent of dawn was barely visible this morning due to the heavy fog and a Northern Short-tailed Shrew -- a.k.a. Blarina brevicauda -- was scurrying about, briefly above ground before disappearing into a hole. Shrews are highly active and voracious little animals with a long snout; they look and act a bit like moles (to which they are related) but a lot faster and without the tunnel digging mitts. Around here we rarely see live shrews although we occasionally find dead ones. They seem to be nocturnal and they spend a lot of time underground or burrowing through leaf litter. I see holes in the ground not obviously connected to mole burrowings and I suspect that they are made by shrews.

I saw another curious animal while driving home at night: a Virginia or North American Opossum hightailing it across Montauk Highway (and, thankfully, not getting smashed by traffic). This is our only native marsupial and the female carries her undeveloped young in a pouch just like a kangaroo. My favorite 'possum story concerns the time, many years ago when someone mistakenly let our dog out at night and she got in a scrap with a 'possum in the middle of the woods. I ran outside only to find a dead 'possum -- possum blood and all. I got the dog back inside the house. But of course I had to show everyone the awful sight. Grabbing a flashlight, I made two or three trips out to view the carnage wrought by our dog. Except that on the third trip into the woods there was no 'possum! I shone the light into the underbrush and there, lo and behold, was the 'possum trotting off with its head turned in a 'possum smile (or sneer). It had been, of course, 'playing possum'.
 
Eric Salzman