Young Naturalist Winter Waterfowl Walk Field Notes

An enthusiastic group of seasoned and beginner birders, including myself, Vinny and Brent, embarked on a waterfowl extravaganza on Saturday January 23, netting us 22 species of duck and 43 species total for the day. Highlights included the sight of a red tailed hawk tearing apart a gull and the incredible visual of anywhere from 20,000-40,000 greater scaup off of Morgan Park in Glen Cove. The raft was never ending!!!!! Another exciting find? A blue morph snow goose at Sunken Meadow SP, a first for me. At the Mill Pond in Oyster Bay a dozen northern pintails were in view and at Tung Ting Pond in Centerport, we had about 75 canvasbacks. Green winged teal were also spotted at this location. Led by John Turner and Vinny Pellegrino in the am, with myself taking over as co-leader in the afternoon, the day was fun, birdy AND we were thrilled to see new faces!!

Species seen for day:

fish crow
snow goose
northern flicker
red tailed hawk
canada goose
common merganser
hooded merganser
red breasted merganser
american wigeon
red head duck
canvasback
bufflehead
gadwall
northern pintail
american coot
long tailed duck
greater scaup
lesser scaup
great blue heron
ring necked duck
mallard
american black duck
mute swan
dark eyed junco
song sparrow
white throated sparrow
red bellied woodpecker
horned grebe
red throated loon
common looon
northern mockingbird
common goldeneye
barrows goldeneye
brant
downy woodpecker
green winged teal
carolina wren
belted kingfisher
rock pigeon
house sparrow
starling (gotta count these birds for the day!)
ring billed gull
herring gull

Why mass die-off of bats should be of grave concern

Bats get a bad rap. Considered by many to be nothing but rabies carriers, or scary creatures of the night that will tangle in your hair (pleeeease, that is a myth), the general public is not aware of just how beneficial these animals really are to our ecosystems. As the largest predators of night flying insects, bats are a vital component to the natural order of things. I happen to think they are cute too! But bats are in deep trouble. Dying at an alarming rate from an insidious disease called White Nosed Syndrome, they are facing one of the most accelerated and dire wildlife crises in the past 100 years. The following is a reprinted article from NECN.com:

(NECN: Anya Huneke, Dorset, VT) - When it comes to cute animals, bats are not generally on the top of the list. But they are a vital part of our eco-system- as a major predator of insects. And now they are being threatened with extinction-- a number of species have contracted a disease that is causing massive die-offs.
Getting to the top of mount Aeolus in East Dorset Vermont, is never an easy feat. Especially in the dead of winter, when snow shoes are a must on this two mile uphill climb. But it's a climb biologists are compelled to make - now, perhaps, more than ever before, as they search for answers to a mystery that has them profoundly baffled... And concerned.

The Aeolus cave is where bats from all over New England hibernate for the winter, historically, the largest site of its kind in the region. But in just two years' time, the population of bats here has plummeted- ever since a disease called 'white nose syndrome' was discovered in caves and mines across the state. The fungus - which appears on the muzzles and wings of bats - was first identified in New York during the winter of 2006 and 7... And quickly spread to neighboring states- including Vermont and Massachusetts. It has now moved as far south as Virginia.

Tuesday, a group of five wildlife experts ventured into Aeolus cave. Barely inside the entrance- they started to lose hope. A few bats - frozen to death - clung to the wall. And farther in, more disheartening signs. The main room of the cave is generally filled with hibernating bats. But this time in- scientists spotted just a few small clusters. Wildlife biologist Scott Darling had hoped for the best, but knew the numbers likely would be low. On a site visit last winter, he found tens of thousands of bat carcasses on the ground. The floor of Aeolus is now covered with bat bones-- left over from a major bat die-off last year. And the ceiling- where there are normally many thousands of bats- there are now very few.
The difference is stark-- here's a picture from last year, when infection was already rampant in this cave.

And here is one from this year. Yet little to date is known about the fungus-- its cause... or its cure. What scientists do know is that bats with white nose syndrome lose their winter fat reserves faster than normal... And emerge from hibernation early- and hungry. During warmer weather, most bats feed on insects-- acting as a natural pesticide by consuming large quantities each night.

That is one reason the impact of this mass mortality of bats, experts say, should be of grave concern. Darling says the timing of this crisis is unfortunate- with federal funding limited and many other national issues taking precedence. But *this* issue - these experts say - is unprecedented... Many infected caves and mines - including Aeolus - are seeing a 90-percent or greater mortality rate.
Experts say bats are slow to reproduce- about one offspring per year. So with the number of bat deaths across the region now moving into the millions, a fix, if one is found, will be years in the making.

Please check out this video:

http://www.necn.com/Boston/SciTech/2010/01/14/Why-mass-dieoff-of-bats/1263476498.html

Brookhaven to go Solar

I was recently shown an article about a proposed solar farm in Brookhaven, featured in Long Island's local Newsday. As someone very interested and optimistic about sustainable energy, I was delighted to hear that 200 acres were to be allocated for the farm. According to the article over four thousand homes would be freed from the tyranny of some power plant, besmirching the air wherever it may be. The customers' payments would not even increase by a dollar for the extra effort in extracting alternating current from the sun.

Yet this beautiful idea came with a footnote just as big. The 200 aces mentioned currently exist as pine barrens habitat, which is a rare sort of ecosystem in the state. Eastern Long Island has some excellent tracts that support uncommon and local flora and fauna. These places have been preserved to keep a way of life as it naturally exists on Long Island, so it does not make much sense in discarding them for a different project. Sure, solar power helps alleviate the stress of pollutants on all living organisms in the long run, but so do the carbon dioxide-absorbing trees that already occupy the property.

The fate of this small corner of the pine barrens is likely out of our hands. But what have we learned? Separately, a solar farm and a forest work together to benefit our environment. A patch of Pitch Pine is not an ideal place for a solar farm as it is now. The habitat must be razed so that the panels can occupy more space and so the requisite sunlight my shine upon them. If an effort is being made to reconstruct the habitat to suite the brigade of panels, why not relocate them elsewhere in the future? Even notorious large businesses have found that having a green perspective can be lucrative, so why would superstores not be willing to add a solar cover to their immense parking lots, for example? Then both trees and solar parking lots are working in our favor, plus your car's innards won't be melting when you come out of the mall.


Sites for followup on some of these thoughts:

"200-acre solar farm planned at Brookhaven Lab." by Jennifer Smith. Newsday.
<http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/green/200-acre-solar-farm-planned-at-brookhaven-lab-1.1694445>

CO2 Now. Check for current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, and other information.
<http://co2now.org/>

"Will Big Business Save the Earth?" by Jared Diamond. New York Times Op-Ed. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html>

From Crickets to Whales, Animal Calls Have Something in Common

ScienceDaily (2010-01-06) -- Animals produce a tremendous diversity of sounds for communication to perform life's basic functions, from courtship and parental care to defense and foraging. Explaining this diversity in sound production is important for understanding the ecology, evolution and behavior of species. Scientists have presented a theory of acoustic communication that shows that much of the diversity in animal vocal signals can be explained based on the energetic constraints of sound production. ... > read full article

Northern Nassau & Smithtown CBC's part I

On Saturday, December 20th I participated on the Northern Nassau County Christmas Bird Count.  THe circle covers Northern Nassau County from Port Washington to Lloyd's Neck, south to Jericho and all points north.  I counted on the Oyster Bay Cove team with Bill Reeves, this being his 65th annual NN CBC, and several other of the usual co-counters in the area. 

Since the day was shortened due to the approaching snowstorm, we cut out one of our less important stops.  Our first location was the East Woods School.  Here we had some good birds, including 4 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 3 Red-winged Blackbirds, 150 Dark-eyed Juncos, 15 Cedar Waxwings, and our only Gary Catbird.  From there we moved to the Pulling Estate, which turned out to be much more quiet the East Woods, and we didn't see any outstanding birds there.  Our next location was probably the best, Tiffany Creek.  Here we found 100 American Goldfinches, 150 House Finches, 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk, 2 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and the highlight of the day 6 Rusty Blackbirds.

Tiffany Creek

We then went to the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary where many birds were visiting the feeders,, including 3 Common Grackles and 5 Red-winged Blackbirds.  We also found large numbers of common feeder birds like Mourning Doves.  Our final stop, the Tiffany Creek Preserve was also good, with three Eastern Towhees, 2 Winter Wrens, and good numbers of other birds.

At the compilation we learned that many good birds had been seen, inluding 4 Wilson's Snipe, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, a Green Heron, and 2 Count Week Ravens. Although we only got 100 species for the total count, it was a good day, and thankfully the snow held off for the night.

Immigrants

After hearing about all sorts of interesting birds being reported in southern New York City, I was fortunate enough to go on a daytrip to see whatever was out there. By midmorning we arrived along the Gravesend Bay promenade in Brooklyn (pictured above, at sunset). A Mew Gull of European origins (Larus canus canus, henceforth Common Gull) had been seen amongst a flock of Ring-billed Gulls there. From the parkway, a group of gulls was visible in the parking lot of the department stores there. It looked like this bird would be easy. Ha!

Needless to say, the bird wasn't among the gulls in the parking lot. A few other birders were there already, and they had heard positive reports from earlier in the morning. However, the bird had flown off, and around a thousand Ring-billed Gulls were now visible. Groups were being fed at several points along the promenade while others rested on the water and on the ballfield. I think it is safe to say within each half hour every bird had moved to participate in some other activity. Despite the continual rotation, no Common Gull ever showed.

The next spot was Cloves Lakes Park over in (on?) Staten Island where a female Summer Tanager had apparently forgotten to check her wintering range in Sibley. En route, we had excellent views of the ever-impressive Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before crossing over it. Some research later revealed that it is the largest suspension bridge in the country, and is so massive that its towers were built very, very slightly tilted away from each other to compensate for the curvature of the Earth. I thought that was worth the digression. Despite recent snowfall, the ironic tanager was still in the park, busy sitting guarding an active beehive inside an old woodpecker hole! Eventually she began sallying out to catch bees, then messily disarming them in her beak. Apparently very pleased with herself, she then began her distinctive chortling call!

A quick check for a nearby Rufous Hummingbird was fruitless, so we returned to the Common Gull stakeout. No positive sightings until shortly after arrival, when the bird was seen briefly by one birder but again vanished. One Bonaparte's Gull that landed on the ballfield, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, and some Purple Sandpipers did make the spot productive. I also thought it was interesting how one could see such an eclectic group of vagrant birds right where so many human immigrants had also found new homes in a foreign land. The Lesser Black-backed Gull could be Scottish. Perhaps the tanager is Cuban. Maybe the Common Gull hails from Poland. They don't realize it, but they are not without compatriots here.

Postscript: the author did catch up with the adorable Common Gull on a subsequent trip. A detailed account of the day was written by Benjamin Van Doren here!

Sunken Meadow SP & Eurasian Wigeon in Setauket

This morning I took a trip to see if I could spot the Eurasion Wigeon in Setauket. I got there and scoped almost all of the bay without luck. Many American Wigeon were out and about though. Then as I was leaving I passed a small cove and in it fed a flock of about forty American Wigeon and amongst the flock was the Eurasian Wigeon.

Yesterday(December 26) I visited Sunken Meadow State Park. The highlights included a female Northern Harrier hunting over the Dunes near Field 3, a single Killdeer along the edge of the exposed mudflats, a cold Snowy Egret hunting in the Inner Marsh, and 32 Northern Gannet plunge-diving on the Long Island Sound. I also enjoyed watching a immature Yellow-bellied Sapsucker foraging very close to me on a tree. complete list of the birds seen is below:

December 26, 2009

Sunken Meadow SP: Northern Harrier, 1 Killdeer, 32 Northern Gannets, Snowy Egret, 4 Red-tailed Hawks, Fish crows, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneye, 46 Long-tailed ducks, American Black ducks, Hooded Mergansers, Belted Kingfisher, Sanderlings