returns of the day

The Tricolored Heron was back this morning. It came in as I was standing on the edge of the pond; it seemed to come up from the marsh and it actually flew straight towards me, landing in the middle of the pond. Among the pond denizens, only the Willet is so tame that it will fly at you rather than away from you when your figure looms up across its field of vision.

Yes, the Willet was there too. Also a Green Heron -- much more shy than the other waders -- was hiding in the trees at the edge of the marsh; it was, I think, being harassed by crows. The crows were very nervous this morning and one of them in particular was raising up quite a racket. Curious to see what the trouble was, I tracked her down only to realize that he (or she) was in fact tracking me! I was the intruder she was yelling about. The explanation was almost certainly that there was a newly fledged young crow in the area and I realized that I could make out its calls quite clearly.

It's often said that the calls of a young crow and the calls of the Fish Crow can be confused but when you hear them at the same time, as I did this morning, the differences are quite clear. The Fish Crow calls were isolated repeated nasal notes in a steady pattern while the young crow's calls were much more random and varied.

Among the morning's return visitors: Great Crested Flycatcher and Pine Warbler, two species that have, I believe, a wide circular range that includes our woodlands. Also Red-eyed Vireo and Common Yellowthroat. The Brown Thrasher, who sang all yesterday afternoon, did not reappear.

A House Finch sings regularly at the foot of Weesuck Avenue (just off our property); this is a species that was formerly much more common but was apparently decimated by an epidemic; it may now be making a comeback. And, though I don't like to admit it, the dreaded Cowbird -- a species that parasitizes other birds by laying its eggs in their nest (with the result that they raise Cowbirds rather than their own young) -- is also in the neighborhood.

Two more (and better) pictures of the Big-leaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla, in bloom.

Eric Salzman

big leaf & little leaf

The Jurassic Park tree is in full bloom.

The real name of this exotic tree is Big-leaf Magnolia or Magnolia macrophylla (which translates exactly to "Big-leaf Magnolia"!). The Jurassic Park moniker was bestowed on this tree by Eileen Schwinn and it fits. It is not a towering tree but it has the largest leaf and the largest single flower of any North American plant, something you'd expect to find in California or Texas perhaps but not in your own back yard. And the Jurassic Park designation is reasonably accurate for another reason: magnolias are among the most ancient of flowering plants and because they are even older than the bees, they have to be pollinated by beetles. That's the way they did it in the old days!

The fruit of this pollination is a sort of pineapple or pinecone-like fruit in which the seeds are enclosed, putting the plant in a category between the gymnosperms and angiosperms -- in other words half-way between conifers, cycads and ginkos on the one hand and the 'true' flowering plants on the other. Big-leaf Magnolia is native to the southeast where it is considered rather rare and even endangered. But our grove of trees (which must have seeded in from a garden plant) appears to be flourishing, self-sustaining and even spreading. Right now the trees are sporting a good crop of large white flowers which unfold from their giant buds to reveal great floppy white petals (known as tarpals). These have no smell but apparently produce copious amounts of pollen to feed the beetles which they need to fertilize the cones, a system that is thought to have remained unchanged since the Mesozoic Era (to be technically correct, magnolias belong to the early Cretaceous just after the Jurassic; in any case, this tree's ancestors were indeed well acquainted with the dinosaurs)!

At the opposite extreme, there is a miniature plant coming up in patches in the hurricane-blasted meadow in front of the house. It has tiny leaves and tiny four-petaled blue flowers . I think this is one of the speedwells. I need to get a magnifying glass to look at the flower and possibly identify the exact species. It is rather an exotic little thing; if it were bigger it would be an attractive garden plant.

No sign of the Tricolored Heron this morning; instead there was a Black-crowned Night-Heron and a Willet in the pond at low tide. The Red-eyed Vireo was singing all morning along with a foraging Common Yellowthroat, a Great Crested Flycatcher, a Baltimore Oriole and, a bit later, that champ singer, a Brown Thrasher, all forming a kind of punctuated background music

Eric Salzman

an uncommon visitor

A breeding-plumaged Tricolored Heron (ex Louisiana Heron) on the pond this morning! The bird was trotting up and back in or near the neck of the pond at low tide and presumably catching fish. I sent Eileen Schwinn a quick e-mail and she came over. The bird seemed to have disappeared from the neck of the pond but as we worked the pond edge, it reappeared right in the middle, nicely posing for its portrait. The two strange objects sticking out from the sides of the bird's head in the top photo are its nuptial plumes (they're also visible in the other photo but in the more usual position behind the head).

Derek Rogers of the Nature Conservancy tells me that there was one on Pine Neck this morning as well but due to some discrepancy in the timing, it is not quite clear if there were two birds or one bird shuttling back and forth. There have been reports of this species from Dune Road in the past few days and I even saw one in distant flight last weekend so there is the possibility that Tricolored Herons are on the move.

The morning was further enlivened by the Red-eyed Vireo's persistent calls and the very un-persistent call of a Yellow-billed Cuckoo (it actually called twice with that characteristic gulping slowdown that marks the species). Both these birds turn up regularly in the spring and both breed in the Pine Barrens but I have never had any evidence that either one breeds down here. The Tricolored Heron is an occasional breeder in mixed heronries on Western Long Island but it is decidedly uncommon to the East and has not, to my knowledge, ever bred on Eastern Long Island.

Eric Salzman

when even high tide is low

We've had a continuous low tide in Shinnecock Bay for about three days now; this is apparently due to the full moon and strong winds from the northwest. This long exposure of mudflats certainly helped with finding shorebirds on the SOFO Shinnecock shorebird walk on Sunday and it has created an almost perpetual habitat in our pond which has hosted Spotted Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Willets, both egrets and Green Heron right through the holiday weekend.

A Red-eyed Vireo has working the oak trees all day and singing away; that's the bird that sings its long non-stop series of short songs in a question-and-answerformat: "Are you there? I'm up here. Whaddya know? Nice 'n' leafy. Is that you? Watch your step. What am I getting? Lotsa bugs!" etc. Red-eyes are common breeders in the Pine Barrens just north of us but they are sporadic down here. Yellow Warbler and Common Yellowthroat continue to signal their presence with their songs,mostly coming from the upper part of the marsh.

I signed my granddaughter Juliette for some Southampton Town Parks & Recreation activities and then stopped at the Hampton Bays water tower to look for ravens. I had heard a rumor that the Suffolk Water Authority (which runs the place) had dismantled the nest. Indeed there was no nest in sight but there were at least two birds hanging around the tower so apparently there are still ravens in residence. Their appearance a couple of years ago -- right opposite the LIRR station on the south side of the tracks -- was a big surprise and a notable range extension. But I think that Northern Ravens are now fairly widespread on Long Island belying their reputation as a wilderness bird!

Eric Salzman

CCO on Dune Road

Went back to the Dune Road early this afternoon to meet with Frank Quevedo and a group from SOFO (South Fork Natural History Museum). Most of the shore- and water-birds seen were similar to those in my post the other day but with a few notable differences.

One big difference was the presence of a veritable pod of whirling, hovering, diving, fishing terns just off the end of the jetty at Shinnecock Inlet and occasionally even into the inlet itself. There was obviously a good run of fish -- at a guess, Bluefish chasing their baitfish which were also being hunted from the air by the terns. What made this unusual was that there were Northern Gannets in the mix (diving for the big fish no doubt) as well as Sooty Shearwaters who were apparently harassing the terns trying to make them give up their catches. As the terns would move in closer to and even inside the inlet, the Gannets and Shearwaters dropped out and eventually disappeared.

Most of the terns were Common but there was at least one Roseate. The wind made it hard to get close looks at the flying terns but this bird clearly had a black bill and a very light silvery upper backside (and a noticeably different call). Oddly enough, there were at least two Common Scoters in the area -- one by the near jetty and the other under the rocks on the eastern side. Also a Red-throated Loon.

The combination of full moon and northwest wind produced one of the lowest tides I have ever seen; even high tide looked low. With all the mudflats exposed, the shorebirds were very widely spread. As before, Ruddy Turnstones were dominant with fair numbers of Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalmated and Piping Plovers, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers (a few), Dunlin, and Short-billed Dowitchers. In one rather handsome group of breeding-plumaged dowitchers there were two or three that were almost certainly Long-billed: large size, deep coloration, very long bills with a notable curve at the end -- almost like Whimbrel! These are, I believe, breeding plumaged females and they offer the best chance of picking out this difficult species. I could also hear Long-billed notes mixed in with the Short-billed when the small flock was spooked by a gull.

Clapper Rail, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Boat-tailed Grackle, Willets, Oystercatchers and lots of Least Terns more or less complete the day's roster.

Eric Salzman

magic cicadas?

If you're waiting for the 17-year locusts to appear, I hope you have a lot of patience. Only 8 years to go!

The locusts are cicadas, of course -- magic cicadas (Magicicada) to be generically specific (or should I say specifically generic). These are the so-called periodical cicadas that live underground in their nymph state for 17 years (some have a 13-year cycle) and then emerge en masse creating a massive buzzing, blooming cicada symphony, tuned up for quick mating to be followed post haste by egg laying in trees, nymph hatching and burrowing underground for another prime number of years before reemerging.

There have been lots of stories about this year's emergence of the 'Eastern brood', last seen in 1996, and this has aroused a good deal of local interest. There was even a page about them in the latest issue of the ELIAS (Eastern Long Island Audubon Society) Newsletter and my old friend David Rothenberg is coming out to SOFO this evening to perform with the insects; he loves to duet with non-human songsters and other sound-making creatures from the natural world and has written several books about the subject his latest being, appropriately, "Bug Music".

Unfortunately, there are not likely to be any cicadas around for him to duet with. For once, the reason has nothing to do with global warming or the destruction of the environment (or, for that matter, the lousy weather). The 17-year cicadas don't emerge all at once but have different cycles in different places; there are (according to various estimates) between seven and 15 known broods, each with a different timetable. The periodic cicadas that have been getting all the publicity belong to Brood II which is indeed widespread in the East -- but not Eastern Long Island. Our guys belong to another set of Eastern magic cicadas: Brood X which appeared here in 2004 when they were all over the place. 2004 plus 17 makes 2021. As I said, only eight years to go.

There may be some Brood IIs coming out on Western LI and we will have our regular annual cicadas emerging a bit later on. The Annuals are an entirely different insect and they (or at least some of them) emerge every year. Unlike the Periodicals (which emerge -- when they emerge at all -- in the spring and take all summer to complete their cycle), the Annuals come in the hot weather and are a typical feature of mid- to late summer; one of their common names is Dog-day Cicada. Alas, neither Magic Cicadas nor Dog-day Cicadas are likely to be singing out here this Memorial Day.

Eric Salzman

Dune Road post-Sandy

Went out with Eileen Schwinn to cruise the post-Sandy Dune Road for shore- and waterbirds with a fair amount of success; many if not most of these birds were firsts for the year.

The best bird of the day was a Tricolored Heron flying away but unmistakeable. Other herons seen were Black-crowned Night Herons and both egrets. There were a dozen Glossy Ibis feeding in a marsh and in flight. And a curious Clapper Rail came out to inspect us, permitting us to inspect him and Eileen to take his picture (see below).

Many Osprey all the way down from Quogue to the Inlet. Ducks seen were Mallards, Black Duck and some lingering Red-breasted Mergansers.

Big overwash areas were cleared of vegetation by Sandy and are now exactly what the hurricane name suggests: sandy! They have been cordoned off and should turn out to be excellent nesting areas for Piping Plover and Least Tern. Both species were seen on this jaunt, the Least Terns in some numbers in a few popular spots. Terns are gregarious and they nest colonially. The Leasts have not started nesting yet but one spot, a tidal pond near the Shinnecock boat basin, was being used by many birds to bathe and preen. All the other terns that could be ID'd were Commons.

In the shorebird category, there were Piping, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers, many Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers plus some Oystercatchers and many Willets. These last two species along with the Piping Plovers (and Killdeer) will stay to nest. In fact, we saw Willets making love and even flushed a female off its nest (with a single egg; she must have just started laying). The courtship was fascinating. The male stood behind her and flapped his striking black-and-white wings at high speed, noisily transfixing us onlookers and also the female who finally succumbed to his obvious charms.

One very upsetting observation: almost no Horseshoe Crabs. The Crabbers have virtually cleaned them out and, with the huge reduction in crab egg laying, we are seeing a big decline in shorebird numbers (the shorebirds feed on the eggs not the adults). Until the harvesting of this ancient creature is totally banned, the crabbers (many, if not most of them from other surrounding states which have banned the practice) will continue to decimate the populations and, with them, the shorebirds.

In the landbird category: Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler and Willow Flycatcher, all birds that frequent the scrubby dune vegetation. Also Boat-tailed as well as Common Grackles. Many swallows in flight, mostly Barns but also some Trees.

Above are Eileen's photos of Mr. Curious Clapper. We've just been added to his Life List.


Eric Salzman