Barely Spring, Comes A Sure Sign of Summer

Too much happening to not get an update together:

A young black-crowned night heron flew across the pond the morning of March 24 and lit in a pine tree just west of the mouth of the north-south creek edging our property. This the first heron in a couple of months, one of the increasing number of signs of renewal on the land.

The middle of March has brought below-freezing nights and below normal days, but the climbing sun is doing its work as both early flowers (crocuses and snowdrops, among others) join early birds in decorating the scene outside my office window.

On the night of March 27, the surest sign of summer-to-come arrived. Just before sunset, an egret settled into one of the trees in which groups of egrets have decided to roost overnight in recent summers. This is the first of the season -- quite early compared with past years when we were anywhere from 10 to 14 days further on the calendar before first arrival.

They are an exciting and solid warm weather marker – here from early April to about Labor Day. Last year they left a bit early, in August. The year before it was a few days beyond Labor Day.

Rain came along behind the creature, which was still in place, hunkered down in a soaking shower as dawn came this morning. Just below, on a snag 20 feet out from the eastern shore, was another new arrival. All scrunched against the weather, it could nevertheless be made out as an adult black-crowned night heron, another first for the season.

There was yet a third arrival, most likely resting en route to the more remote climes its ilk prefers. Appearing on Friday morning was a pied-billed grebe. It is a threatened species now, battling along with so many against habitat destruction. My books note them a shy and wary creature that are not often sighted.

This one stayed fairly close to shore but floated toward the center on occasion, making it easy to study. It was quiet on Friday; still there as night fell and on hand this morning. But today it was in feeding mode, repeatedly diving for small fish in competition with three cormorants who showed up for a quick raid on the pond’s fish market. The grebe was nonplussed even when they made some underwater runs toward it, retreating to shallow waters they couldn’t navigate.

I had hoped for, but didn’t see, its showy move of sinking straight down, the grebe’s strategy when they feel an obvious threat at hand, unlike the big one they can’t see. I expect it will be on its way after a good meal. I wish it luck.

All this, despite the usual mix of fresh water which has been pretty well stopped for nearly a year by blockage in the underground culverts that feed our creek. Tidal flows have kept it wet, but on low tides, it is a shade of its normal babbling brook nature. That will return soon, however, as a work crew last week began building all new culverts.

Heading north are numbers of ruddy ducks. A group of more than 60 was on the pond east of a town park a few miles north of here in North Babylon. Part of the Carll’s River system, the water is a regular rest stop for large flocks of ruddys each spring. There was a smaller group chasing baitfish on nearby Belmont Lake.

Friday I spotted a great flock of what appeared to be brant but could have been snow geese – at least a couple of hundred birds in big V-formations, flying low as they stroked along a following SSW wind.

Earlier in the week, a small group of perhaps 30 or 40 Greater Scaup were prowling the lower Carll’s River, south of Montauk Highway in Babylon, as were a few in the Brightwaters Canal. These are undoubtedly the last of the winter visitors which can create rafts of thousands in the bays and coastal waters during the coldest months. Groups of mergansers and a couple of Buffleheads are still dotted around, soon to be memories for summer.

Spring Break

A wave of early season summer birds swept in with the break in frigid temperatures that surrounded a record snowfall on Monday, March 2. First through was a crowd of robins, but the big day was March 7 when three grackles caught my attention, the first to be seen since November. Working in the yard a short time later, a chorus of Red-wing Blackbirds mixed in the trees with more grackles, all likely to be traveling together.

Another seasonal first at the weekend was a solitary cowbird, picking through seeds at the feeding station on March 9. A Purple Finch also joined the resident goldfinches at the niger feeder. They have been known to over winter in the area, but this was the first I have seen since Christmastime this season.

Suet drew a range of woodpeckers including a single male Hairy, three Downies and a Red-bellied. A Yellow-shafted Flicker also lit briefly in the popular woodpecker grazing tree, an aging but resolute choke cherry whose peel-back bark clearly hosts a plethora of tasty critters. A noisy jay flitted around along with the other visitors – whether they were traveling together or just happened to show up in the warm weather is hard to know, but the grouping was significant.

A female Cardinal, who may well have been around all winter but has been scarce, showed up on March 8 among the regular ground feeders: sparrows, juncos, mourning doves and the ubiquitous starlings. Crows have shown up in the area in large numbers, probably on migration, given multiple groups on different days.

On the pond, fishing has definitely improved as made clear by the daily work of a handsome Common Merganser and a juvenile Double-crested Cormorant whose unusually pale colors made him look more like a Yellow-billed Loon at first glance. These two skilled divers were harassed constantly by Herring Gulls who watched carefully for them to surface with hopes of stealing a meal. The gulls, however, were too slow to get moving after the rises with fish – each time I saw a successful run, the prey was dispatched before a gull was within 15 feet.

Mallards are continuing their dances around the pond, with flurries of lunge and parry mixing with bouts of splash and dive. A quick survey shows 20 on hand this morning.

Their antics stand in counterpoint to the somber presence of a Great Blue Heron, now sporting breeding plumage, who is here every morning and evening, sometimes hunched over a single long leg in sleep, but more often prowling the shallows for its next meal.

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