Nature Notes: Alas, Poor Whippoorwills
Sunday night was cloudy and cool with a slight breeze. I set out for a second night on the trail of the once common but now rare whippoorwill. Last Thursday the Noyac and Bridgehampton hills were under my microscope. Sunday night it would be Northwest Woods in East Hampton and Napeague. I didn’t hear a single whippoorwill the first night. I was hoping that it would be a different story the second time out.
On a late May evening 15 years ago the white pines, pitch pines, and oaks that make up the lightly developed woodlands of Northwest would have been reverberating with the call of the whippoorwill, but Sunday night was eerily quiet. If not for the occasional gray tree frog calling or the warning notes of a robin, there would have been no sounds other than those produced by motor vehicles and an occasional barking dog.
The first major stop was along the town trustee trail paralleling Northwest Creek. Only a few years ago, you could be sure of hearing at least one whippoorwill song among the oaks and hickories along that trail. On Sunday evening, save for a mockingbird singing at the edge of the marsh, it was silent.
A large raccoon scooted across Swamp Road. When I stopped at the Grace Estate pull-off on Northwest Road and turned off my lights, a fox peered out from behind an oak tree bole. It looked to be gray, but when it exposed its entire body while sneaking by my vehicle, it looked more red than gray and it didn’t slink like a gray fox; it walked the walk of a red fox. The Grace Estate and the woodlands on the southeast side of Northwest Road make up more than 500 acres of unfettered open space. You would think it would be home to at least one happy whippoorwill, but not on this night.
In the past, the Peach Farm on the other side of the same road had been a place where bluebirds sang during the day, hermit thrushes at dusk, and whippoorwills cruised low out in the open, hawking moths and other night-flying insects. But on this night the Peach Farm was merely another residential area, absolutely quiet.
After a brief run down Alewife Brook Road with stops at the stream running under the road into Ely Brook Pond and along Terry’s Trail, accompanied by a ghostly silence, I decided to head directly for a spot where I knew there would be a whippoorwill or two, Napeague. I had received telephone reports of whippoorwills calling there a few nights earlier. So I sped out to Napeague Harbor Road, crossed the railroad tracks, and stopped to listen. A gray tree frog sang its raspy warble over and over again from the wetlands to the west. I went all the way to the end, parked by the side of the Walking Dunes, and listened. Not a sound. Maybe Napeague would disappoint, I thought.
I doubled back to Napeague Meadow Road. Halfway down the road with a marsh on the east and low piney woods on the west, I stopped and listened. Nada. Then on to Cranberry Hole Road and east toward Napeague Harbor’s west outlet. Just past Crassen Boulevard I stopped and listened. Behold, one whippoorwill song coming in loud and clear with a clockwork cadence. Hurray! I continued along to the edge of the harbor. Hark, a second whippoorwill repeating his song with the same cadence.
My spirits were soaring. I was in one of my favorite East Hampton haunts and listening to the first whippoorwill songs to grace my ears this season. I continued west down the main town trustee road with the little houses on each side, stopping between the old Merrill trailer camp on the west and the pitch pines to the east. Whammo, another whippoorwill singing over and over from the depths of those pitch pines.
By then it was 11 and I was headed home. Three whippoorwills, several gray tree frogs, one roadkill raccoon and gray squirrel each, plus the previously mentioned two very alive mammals, as well as two deer. Not a bad night after all, I thought. Especially not bad when compared to the three hours I had spent the Thursday evening before cruising up and down morainal roads in Southampton — formerly desolate but now lined with lighted driveways from one end to the other — without hearing a single whippoorwill.
Another highlight of that night was the blooming white beach plums lining both sides of Napeague Harbor Road. I never thought that beach plums could be more beautiful in pale evening light than in the daytime, but they truly were that Sunday night, and they were so abundant. Does it portend a bumper berry year come fall, after so many poor ones? I hope so.
Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].