Category Archives: In the neighborhood

Birds, In the neighborhood, PSA

Garbage on the doorstep

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The Piping Plovers that nest at “B” Lot and other oceanside beaches at Sandy Hook do so under almost ideal conditions, at least until Memorial Day Weekend, when beachgoers arrive.

Before then, they court, bond and set up housekeeping in relative isolation. Clamshells and pebbles populate the landscape; bits of driftwood and beachgrass offer them cover.

Save the occasional wayward Lab that can’t resist a dip in their private ocean.

🙂

(Dogs are not allowed on oceanside beaches during nesting season. Many people ignore this rule.)

Grrr.

The northernmost tip of Sandy Hook, by contrast, is like another world… beachgoers rarely wander this far; the beach outside the plovers’ protected nesting area is littered with debris…

Piping Plovers, Least Terns, Skimmers, Oystercatchers… they all nest here, in privacy, in the middle of the garbage that washes, butt up, on their doorstep.

Far above the tide line, they carve out their nest scrapes among the scattered wrack and shells; they shelter their young in the shadow of discarded tv sets…

rusted oxygen(?) tanks…

car bumpers…

This last is kinda gross – don’t look!

and decomposing dogs washed ashore from God-knows-where.

(I never did find any Plovers here… but the 8-10 reported recently had plenty of places to hide!)

I think we owe them better; I believe the cost of privacy for endangered and threatened species shouldn’t be as high as this!

Every bit of garbage ends up somewhere… we all know this. A lot of NYC trash ends up at Sandy Hook. This needn’t be so.

🙁

Clean Ocean Action sponsors regular beach sweeps… the next at Sandy Hook is scheduled for April 30, 2011!

(Our newly returned Osprey will thank you for a more beautiful landscape over which to hunt flounder!)

Piping Plovers deserve at least as clean a beach as we expect for ourselves, don’t you think?

Birds, In the neighborhood

Sea crows

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Trying to be inconspicuous

Oystercatchers are funny birds; so boldly patterned, their calls so strident, yet they’re so shy!

Staying put, for the moment

You wouldn’t think it, but you could easily walk past an oystercatcher without noticing it. Except that they give themselves away at the very last second.

Complaining that I’m too close for comfort

Their nerves get the best of them when what they really need to do is stay put and stay quiet! Instead they advertise with loud calls and bright bills.

Stalking ahead

All afternoon today I was pushing a pair ahead of me as I wandered at Sandy Hook looking for Piping Plovers.

Birds, In the neighborhood, Seasons, Snapshots

My spring

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Did you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten… You could hear “the rush of mighty wings,” but oftener a velvety rustle, long drawn out… occasionally from high in the air came the notes of the plover.
–Walt Whitman, Specimen Days

The warming March sun and a faintly whistled “peep lo” lured me to Sandy Hook this weekend to greet the newly arrived Piping Plovers. Courting Woodcock the evening before, an Osprey making a bee-line up the coast and the season’s first Phoebe completed the day.

Happy Spring!

Birds, From the field, In the neighborhood

Bad bird photo of the week

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Scaup taking wing…

So I happened to come across this article about a local duck phenomenon and made it a point to find my way there today, in my traveling from one end of the county to another to see clients. For many years this was THE place to go locally for huge numbers of Scaup, but in the last couple of years, not so much. I’d drive by, over the Oceanic Bridge hopeful, but nothing the last few years.

I found them there today, but completely panicked when they all took off at once from the water…

It was really beautiful, though.

(Darn camera!)

; )

Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Ruddies

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There are finer, more carefully focused and composed photos from a chance encounter with a group of Ruddies the other day… but this is my favorite because the details give away so much about this little duck… the bluish bill, the outstretched neck and jaunty tilt of the tail.

They’re usually easy to find in the neighborhood ponds and almost always bring a smile.

: )

My go-to book for historical bird names has a very long list for the Ruddy Duck; many of which are hysterical…

Dumpling Duck, Daub Duck, Deaf Duck, Fool Duck, Sleepy Duck, Butter Duck, Brown Diving Teal, Widgeon Coot, Creek Coot, Sleepy Coot, Booby Coot, Ruddy Diver, Dun Diver, Sleepy Brother, Butter-Ball, Batter-Scoot, Blatherskite, Bumblebee Coot, Quill-tailed Coot, Heavy-tailed Coot, Stiff-tail, Pin-tail, Bristle-tail, Sprig-tail, Stick-tail, Spine-tail, Dip-tail, Diver, Dun-bird, Dumb-bird, Mud-dipper, Spoon-billed, Butter-ball, Spoonbill, Broad-billed dipper, Dipper, Dapper, Dopper, Broad-bill, Blue-bill, Sleepy-head, Tough-head, Hickory-head, Steel-head, Hard-headed Broad-bill, Bull-neck, Leather-back, Paddy-whack, Stub-and-twist, Light-wood-knot, Shot-pouch, Water-partridge, Dinky, Dickey, Paddy, Noddy, Booby, Rook, Roody, Gray Teal, Salt-water Teal, Stiff-tailed Widgeon.

Edward Howe Forbush (1917) explains that many of the common names stem from the difficulty in hunting them…

(Stub-and-twist is a personal favorite!)