Flycatchers & flowers

The hot weather brings out insects and the insects bring out the flycatchers. Two Great Crested Flycatchers and an Eastern Phoebe turned up by the house yesterday evening to hunt in the last light of day. The orange skippers that I mentioned in yesterday's post were still flying and I became concerned that the flycatchers would turn into skippercatchers but, as far as I could tell, the butterflies survived. Then again this morning, an Eastern Phoebe turned up on the other side of the woods in an open area near a neighbor's garden (the Phoebe is a bird that has become more common around here as a migrant and a breeder). And two Great Crested Flycatchers -- possibly the same ones that I saw last night -- were active on the edge of the marsh, even flying across and around the marsh itself, not the usual habitat for these woodland birds. Like the ones seen last night, they were silent (adult Great Cresteds usually make a lot of noise and even male-female pairs seem to talk to each other). Also one of them at least appeared to have a rounded head without any trace of a crest. Could they have been young birds (in other respects, they looked like the adults)? Great Crested, like Phoebes, are early flycatchers, arriving in April but the second week in June would seem to be a week or two early for mature-looking flying young.

There are other local birds that definitely have flying young, notably the Carolina Wren, a non-migratory species, which has become an early and prolific nester in these parts. When I started birding years ago, Carolina Wrens were South Shore rarities, decimated by the cold winters. Now they are one of a long list of southern species that are flourishing here, as good an evidence of climate warming as I can think of. The brood that hatched and fledged around the house appears to have dispersed but there is another brood active at the edge of the woods near the point where the old (and original) right of way comes into the property from Randall Lane. A curious feature of these broods is that the male sings loudly and continuously even as the young birds scatter into the underbrush. Is he signaling to his offspring? Trying to attract attention away from the vulnerable youngsters? Or both?

The Arrow-wood Viburnum, with its white umbrella floral clusters, is in full bloom in and around the woods and our common local morning glory -- I think it is Hedge Bindweed, Convolvulus sepium -- is already starting to bloom. The rampant Bittersweet is covered with blossoms that are hardly noticeable because they are green. And the Nightshade is starting to bloom; like the reviled Bittersweet, it's an alien weed but it had a very striking little purple and yellow flowers that add an exotic touch to the landscape. The clusters of red berries that will follow are like little tomatoes which is not surprising since they are in the same family. The question is how poisonous these berries might be. We used to call this plant Deadly Nightshade but I suspect that the berries are no more deadly than the tomato (which was once also considered poisonous). However I have no plans to test out this theory and I don't recommend that you try it either. The solanums are a collection of plants that are edible, poisonous, hallucinogenic and even medicinal but, outside of the cultivated tomato and fully ripe potato tubers, I would not pretend to know which or which part of what is which.

Eric Salzman

what did we see?

Did we really see a Red-necked Stint at Pike's Beach?

The second week of June is not the best time to check out the shorebirds but if they're anywhere they'll be at Pike's Beach. There have been Horseshoe Crab landings at that favored spot as recently as last night and this morning's tide was low and starting to turn. We saw Least and Common Terns, Piping Plovers and Willets -- but they all breed so there were no surprises there. Among the migrants we saw Dunlin (one), Ruddy Turnstones (a few), Black-bellied Plover (a couple), Semipalmated Plover (a few), Sanderlings (quite a few) and Semipalmated Sandpipers (dozens, maybe hundreds). With an array of birds like this, there is nothing to do but look at peeps and try to find one that is different from the others. And, lo and behold, we found one in the middle of a flock near the far end of the peninsula, that was covered, front and center, in a reddish wash. A Sanderling in breeding plumage? It looked the size of a Semipalmated Sandpiper except that it had shorter legs. The reddish wash seemed to cover the neck and upper breast and also extended onto the back. A stint? Red-necked Stint? Little Stint? The distance between us and the flock was considerable so we decided to try to creep up on it (not so easy on an open sandy shore), stopping every now and then to use our spotting scopes to get a better look. Eventually the flock scattered, reformed and landed again in another spot. Our target bird disappeared behind a sand ridge. Then we thought we re-found it but now the rediscovered bird with the reddish wash turned out to be one of those breeding plumage Sanderlings with a lot of color; there were two or three of them scattered among less colorful Sanderlings. The tide was starting to come in and the peeps were redeploying -- with or without Sanderlings.

A stint on Pike's Beach? On July 15, 2000, I found a Red-necked Stint AND a Little Stint together on the bay shore here not too far from where we saw the mystery bird today. At one point, I even had both stints in my binoculars at the same time! The presence of these two vagrants was confirmed by photographs. No wonder that a visit to Pike's Beach, even after 11 years, produces that stints-on-the-brain effect.

So what did we see this morning? Eileen took photographs including some through her scope and some through mine Alas, nothing was clear enough. Red-necked Stint is the best guess but we'll never know for sure.

This afternoon, as I was writing this post on my porch, a pair of orange butterflies was zooming around -- fighting? courting? protecting territory? -- and perching on stems just outside. They were skippers -- but which ones? Indian Skipper? Hobomok Skipper? Zabulon Skipper? Skippers are the stints, the peeps of the butterfly world.

Eric Salzman

Noises off

When I go out to the pond and marsh very early in the morning -- at or just after sunrise -- I find the Barn Swallows in action working along the vegetation and low across the marsh and pond edges. The Purple Martins, however, are still at or close to the colony. These very social birds first seem to send out occasional scouts to check out the situation. Acting initially as a group, they fan out over the immediate area around the colony, then over the marsh and, eventually, as things warm up and the larger insects get going, over a larger and larger area. The Purple Martin flying technique of fast flaps and a glide is quite different from the looping, darting and smooth flowing glides of the Barn Swallows. Occasionally these birds are joined by other swallows -- Tree, Bank and Rough-winged all have shown up -- or by a twittering Chimney Swift or two, almost always high overhead. Each of these species has its own distinctive flight style, often the best way to pick them out.

It has been the Green Heron and not the Willet that has been 'on guard' the past couple of mornings. While the Willet likes to post out in the open on the dead Red Cedar by the pond, the Green Heron sits in a pine or oak tree just back from the edge of the marsh and is well hidden beneath the canopy. I never would have noticed him at all if not for the strange and continuous series of soft 'gulps' that he emits and I which I did not at first correctly identify (I thought it was one of the cuckoos). The sound is hard to place and seems much further away than it actually is; as a result, I only recently connected with the heron. It seems to be a kind of territorial marker and perhaps a come-hither signal as well. The bird sits on a branch fairly high up and gulps away, each 'gulp' separated by at least 10-20 seconds of silence. Insofar as I have been able to watch it during the performance, there does not seem to be any special display although just the effect of the bird sitting on a branch is a display in itself; the staring yellow eye, thick yellow legs, strange muted plumage colors and long, straight, dagger-like bill gives it an almost prehistoric look.

The Green Heron gulps were not the only strange sounds of the morning. At the head of the marsh, there was a rather scary series of rattling or twittering noises coming from the thick forest of reeds covering that area. It was as if someone were trying to start a defective motor but it also had a slightly threatening quality. I worked my way around to the little wooden bridge across the muddy stream that feeds the marsh, sat down on the edge facing downstream where there was a view between the reeds, and waited patiently for something to show. Out of the reeds, down the muddy bank, and into the water came two cute little Raccoons, hardly more than babies, with full black masks but relatively stubby tails (I couldn't see tail markings or even much fur but the light was bad and the tails were wet and bedraggled). Perhaps mama was in the area; some books attribute the twitter to the mother as some sort of reassuring message to the offspring although I am quite certain that in this case one of the babies was making the sound. All I saw were the two young 'uns who paid me no mind as they snurfled around in the mud, stirring things up with their paws, before turning and heading downstream. If mama was in the area, she never showed.

Eric Salzman

lots of bugs

'Normal' June weather returned this morning with warmer temperatures, higher humidity, hazy sunshine, and lots of bugs -- mosquitos, no-see-ums, moths and butterflies among others. The proliferation of insects is, of course, good for the birds and it comes just at the time that most species are starting to feed young. I saw a female Red-wing with a fat green caterpillar which she did not swallow but flew off with. The swallows and martins were out in force with at least one Bank Swallow accompanying the familiar legions of Purple Martins and Barn Swallows. A tiny, rather tame butterfly in the path at the edge of the marsh caught my attention. In flight, it showed flashing blue upperparts but, perched with folded wings, the underside looked like a hairstreak with an orange (or red) band. I think it may have been a Red-banded Hairstreak (and not a blue or azure), definitely something new for me. Red-banded Hairstreak is a southern species that has appeared on Long Island in recent years.

Common Yellowthroat #2 -- the bird that sings a loud resonant and non-stop 'weetchity-weetchity-weet' at the corner of the marsh -- appears to have won the singing competition with Common Yellowthroat #1 with its thinner, less penetrating 'weetchy-weetchy-weetch', heard since the first days of May at the head of the marsh but silent for the past two days. But was Yellowthroat #1 really the loser? It was the earlier arrival and it seems to have had a mate so it may have stopped singing because it has young in the nest. In the evolutionary game, that would make it a winner! Highly persistent singers like Yellowthroat #2 are likely to be lovelorn. But who knows? I'll keep looking for a female.

Also heard in the same area: the soft gulping sound of the Green Heron coming from the woods. I am almost certain that this sound means that this heron is nesting (or trying to nest) in the woods between the house and the marsh.

On the flower front: a third round of inflorescence. Multiflora rose is starting to bloom wherever the trails and right-of-ways come out of the woods, viburnum is starting to form its white umbels in the woods and a smaller, more stand-up version of the dandelion (species?) is blooming in more open areas.

Eric Salzman

sunshine, a rising wind and 3 photos

Another 'fall' day in June: brilliant sunshine with little or no wind early on and then a rising wind throughout the morning. Brilliant male Wood Duck (to go with the brilliant sunshine) sitting on the pond. One or two Tree Swallows flying with the Purple Martins over the marsh. Marauding crows everywhere looking for eggs and nestlings to feed THEIR nestlings; then squadrons of Red-winged Blackbirds (and other birds) rising up to chase them off.

Here are three photos by Eileen Schwinn taken yesterday:

1) Willet 'on guard' at the top of the dead Red Cedar by the pond
2) emerging flower of the Big-leaf (a.k.a. 'Jurassic Park') Magnolia
3) not the Spicebush Swallowtail that we saw but a gorgeous Black Swallowtail that she photographed later in the day








Eric Salzman

P.O. Box 775 (14 Randall Lane)
East Quogue NY 11942
631 653-5236
es@ericsalzman.com
www.ericsalzman.com

A beautiful fall day in early June

Today was like a beautiful fall day -- on the 2nd of June! Eileen Schwinn came over, at least partly in the hope of seeing the amorous cuckoos of the day before yesterday. Alas, no cuckoos (although, before Eileen came, I did hear a distant rhythmic call that may have been a Black-billed Cuckoo). The most unexpected sound of the day was a brief double nuthatch call, probably a White-breasted Nuthatch which, however, did not show itself. House Finches, in short supply these days due to a serious eye disease that has decimated their ranks, turned up twice: once a single male, the other time a small group of four birds. The high-pitched sound of Cedar Waxwing was in evidence more than once but no waxwing flocks were seen; the birds may already be paired off and they are difficult to find poking around in the greenery.

A second Common Yellowthroat, singing 'weechity-weechity-weech' in a robust tone has commandeered one corner of the 'front range' -- the tree cover facing east across the extension of the marsh. The first Yellowthroat, singing 'weetchy-weetchy-weetch' in a thinner tone, still occupies the head of the marsh where it has been since early May (and where I have also seen a female). In another bit of bird news, the House Wren that has been singing since early May around the 'Jurassic Park Woods', has discovered our neighbor's collection of a dozen or so Hansel-and-Gretel bird houses surrounding their swimming pool and has moved over to occupy the site. You would expect a cuckoo-clock cuckoo to come popping out of one of these nest box holes but until now, no bird (not even a House Sparrow) has taken an interest. One of them would certainly make a perfect House Wren house and, judging by his persistence, this little troglodyte (Troglodytes aedon) seems to agree.

The Willet was again on his guard post on top of the dead cedar with a second Willet in the pond. Purple Martins were swarming all over the place and there were singing visits from Pine Warbler and Great Crested Flycatcher. Otherwise things were quiet. The morning chorus has dwindled to a few early morning solos as birds are distracted by nesting duties.

Eric Salzman

Guard bird and a living fossil tree

As I approached the pond this morning, the Willet suddenly came hurtling through the air, flying directly at me. Only at the last moment did he alter course, zoom past and circle around ending up on his usual observation spot at the top of the dead cedar on the far side of the pond. I say 'the' Willet because I assume this is the same bird who greets me every morning by flying at me or by watching me from his guard post. But what is he guarding? Has he simply decided that the pond and the marsh area around is 'his' territory (I'm assuming that he's a male but even that is not certain). Or is there a nest, eggs and a sitting female somewhere near by?

With the late leaf emergence of the Tupelos, Black Walnut and locusts, the sprouting of the marsh grass and high tide bushes -- Baccharis (Groudsel-tree) and Ivo (Marsh Elder) -- and the final leafing out of the oaks along the marsh edge, the place is only just now achieving its full spring green. Fallen oak tassels are all over the place, sneeze-inducing pine pollen is in the air and, in addition to the other flowers mentioned in an earlier post, the Rubus blackberries and Black Cherry are blossoming along with clover, yellow cinquefoil and a few other things.

Outside of the woods, the most obvious floral event is the full bloom of the garden rhododendrons. But for my money, the best flower display belongs to the Big-leaf or 'Jurassic Park' Magnolia. This extraordinary flowering tree is presumably a garden escape but it is one of a number of southern and midwestern species that are, for worse or for better, flourishing here by themselves after arriving with human help. Although this off-beat magnolia is sometimes considered to be threatened in its original southern habitat and is supposed to be restricted to 'mesic' or moist habitats, our small woodland grove is thriving with the older trees covered with flowers and many new saplings sprouting underneath. My guess is that the habitat here is 'mesic' only because of the sea fog which has been plentiful this spring and perhaps has helped encourage this spring's record flowering. The giant leaves and huge, upright, messy, white dinosaur flowers are both considered the largest in the catalogue of native North American plants. Eileen Schwinn's nickname of 'Jurassic Park Tree' is not at all far-fetched botanically as the magnolia family is one of the oldest and most primitive of all the flowering plants (it is said that magnolias are fertilized exclusively by beetles because when they were among the first flowering plants and when they appeared bees had not yet evolved). The trees in our grove are at their flowering peak right now, with numerous flowers in every stage of development from unopened buds to stand-up flower bundles, to flowers whose petals/sepals are collapsing to reveal the pineapple-style fruit at the center.

Eric Salzman