Nature Notes: The Calls of the Wild
We just had a glorious weekend in which all the hardwoods, save for the white oaks, which always are the last to foliate, were festooned with fresh green leaves. Thus it was a perfect setting for the arrival of the New World warblers, which every year near the middle of May stop on Long Island to feed and rest after a long flight from their southern winter climes.
Many species will stop to breed; a few are rare breeders here. Most warblers like to hang out in the foliage. Very few are found on the ground. Perhaps that is why the Rubinstein sisters were out in Stony Hill Woods in Amagansett on Sunday checking out the newcomers and those that have been here for some time.
Four eyes and four ears are better than two. In their Sunday afternoon foray Karen and Barbara saw 9 different warbler species and heard 5 others, for a total of 14. Quite a day! A fellow birder, Vicki Bustamante, was at Shadmoor Park in Montauk at the same time and she saw and heard a Lawrence warbler, a rare recessive hybrid species from a cross between the golden-wing warbler and blue-wing warblers. It breeds true and sings like either of the two parents, both of which have buzzy songs according to Roger Tory Peterson.
Additional good signs from the Rubinsteins were the presence of a lot of wood thrushes, a species of the deciduous woods that has been thinning of late. Other species liking that habitat are Baltimore orioles and rose-breasted grosbeaks. They recorded several of the former and a pair of the latter. The parula warbler is one of the most beautiful of the warblers, which are generally fine of plumage, and has been a rarity here in the past, but may be becoming more common. Its favorite nesting material is the Usnea lichen, which used to be very rare here, but in this millennium with its profound warming trend has become quite common. It hangs from trees in the manner of Spanish moss of southern wetlands and swampy forests.
While Vicki and the Rubinsteins were tramping around in the woods, I was working in my yard all day while listening to orioles, catbirds, Carolina wrens, great crested flycatchers, chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, and robins carrying on. But next door something yellow caught my eye. It was splashing around in my neighbor’s birdbath with two blackbird types. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a bird I had never seen before and one that is quite uncommon in these parts, a male yellow-headed blackbird. It was striking. I called up my neighbor Ellen Stahl to find out if she saw it. “No, I didn’t, but did you see the male rose-breasted grosbeak taking a bath.” I had not, but later on in the day I heard one singing its robin-like song.
While examining the trees in the yard I noticed a few canker worms hanging on threads, but no gypsy moth caterpillars. We may be blessed with another gypsy-moth-less year, but it is too early to tell. After a winter of the likes we’ve just experienced, the little hairy devils could emerge later than usual.
On the other hand, the number of tent caterpillars around is worrisome. They attack species of the rose family genus, Prunus, and, in particular, black cherries and beach plums, two of our most common wild fruit-bearing species. As soon as the eggs hatch out in the spring, the larvae cooperative spins threads to create a nest in the crotch of a stem. They wait for the leaves to expand and during the day leave their nest to feed on them, and then crawl back into the nest to spend the night. They pretty much have the two Prunus species to themselves and can defoliate whole trees and shrubs. The larvae are hairy like gypsy moth caterpillars and so they are not the favorite of insectivorous birds. Hosing them off with the nozzle set blast can readily knock them off onto the ground.
Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].