4th-of-July Turkeys

What could be more appropriate on the 4th of July than a rafter or muster of turkeys (or perhaps just a flock) ? This year's turkey crowd consists of three hens and 15  chicks that are growing up fast! I saw them twice this morning in two different places but I have no doubt that it was the same flock. Why are Wild Turkeys appropriate for the 4th of July? Well Benjamin Franklin famously thought that Meleagris gallopavo should be our national symbol rather than the Bald Eagle which is an aggressive and piratical bird!

Some other notes of recent vintage:

A strange repeated squawk caught my attention a couple of days ago and as been repeated since. It turned out to be a Yellow-crowned Night Heron, perched fairly high in a leafy tree and afterwards on a dead branch near the pond.

A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird has been hanging around the head of the marsh. He perches high on dead branches possibly looking for females. I haven't discovered a nest this year although I have seen females.

A furious circular dance by the pond of two American Copper butterflies caught my eye early yesterday morning (before taking off for Cupsogue -- me not the butterflies -- with Eileen Schwinn). After a rather extended bout of circular chasing, the two butterflies separated and posed prettily on a couple of lowdown sunlit leaves enabling me to be sure of the ID. After a few minutes, the chase resumed and, as I had to leave, I didn't see the outcome. Was it love or war? Probably the former but it was hard to be sure.

Saw my first Little Wood-Satyr of the season this morning on the old right-of-way. (When I tell visitors that we have Nymphs and Satyrs on the place, they nod their heads and say, 'Sure. sure'). Yesterday, there were a number of fairly large dark-winged butterflies flying from the south over Moriches Bay and crossing right in front of our path along the bayshore; I thought they might have been migrants (yes, butterflies besides Monarchs do migrate and in both directions).

A couple of birds to add to yesterday's Cupsogue report: Least Sandpipers flying over and into the marsh (identified by their stiff-winged flight). Also Laughing Gulls in summer plumage (i.e. black-headed; this is not a common bird here in the spring and early summer). And a Willet that was distinctly larger than all the others was almost certainly a Western, a regular visitor here. (Andrew Baksh, who was also there, reported Western Willet in his post this morning.) Eastern and Western Willets have been split into two different species so, if you have seen a large, pale Willet on the East End or in a western wetland, you can add an 'armchair' species to your list! More splits -- and thus more armchair species -- are coming down the pike!

On Friday, July 7th, at 8 am, I'm doing a walk for the Friends of the Long Island Greenbelt starting at Poxabogue Pond and ending up at the Vineyard Field. The meeting place is the entrance to Poxaboue County Park just south of the LIRR tracks on Old Pond Road, Sagaponack. For more information go to Friends Of The Long Pond Greenbelt or, better yet, contact Dai Dayton by phone at 631 745-0689. I haven't been to this beautiful pond fo many years and, among other things, I'm very curious to know what birds are now breeding there.

Eric Salzman