Nature Notes: Eagles and Owls

Long Island’s annual holiday-season breeding bird counts have come and gone, the last, the Orient Count, finishing up the lot on Saturday. The two closest to home were the Orient count, which includes part of Noyac, Sag Harbor, North Haven, and East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, and the Montauk count, which includes Amagansett, Springs, Montauk, and Gardiner’s Island.

The weather was benign for the Montauk count held on Dec. 20, and cold, windy, and stormy for the Orient count. Each count circle, 15 miles in diameter and the same year after year, is divided up into sectors. One or more birders cover each sector. Vicki Bustamante, Arthur Goldberg, and I covered East Hampton’s Northwest, Cedar Point County Park west to Barcelona, while Terry Sullivan covered North Haven and Eileen Schwinn and a companion took on Sag Harbor Village.

Karen Rubinstein and Angus Wilson were the compilers of the Montauk count, which has been held annually since the 1920s. The Orient count has been held since the 1930s. This count, largely because of the inclusion of Gardiner’s Island, is one of the richest on Long Island, and this time around found 29,130 individuals from 127 different species.

Among the unusual birds observed were two Eurasian wigeons, eight bald eagles, a northern goshawk, a barn owl, a saw-whet owl, and two snowy owls. Gardiner’s Island came up with its usual bounty, including an orange-crowned warbler and clay-colored sparrow. Other territories accounted for a Lincoln’s sparrow and two common redpolls. More northern birds would have shown up if the weather had been colder.

Woodpeckers were out in force, including 25 yellow-bellied sapsuckers, a count record. Among waterfowl the ubiquitous Canada geese were reasonably common at 831, scoters of three species numbered about 6,000, black ducks whipped mallards, 707 to 156, a nice turnaround, and there were at least 582 common loons. It must have been a good breeding season in the freshwater lakes in the northern states. And that mute swan that was on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s hit list for a time recently? There were 141 counted, hardly a problem, I would say.

The Orient count results were not all in as this was being written, but the four territories, excepting Jessup’s Neck (Morton Wildlife Refuge) came in below average. Waterfowl counts were low — only 13 common loons and 86 Canada geese, while mallards outnumbered black ducks, 132 to 67, as is usual for this South Fork area of the count. The three scoter species totaled only 18 individuals. Bottom mollusks must be in short supply.

Neither count recorded a bobwhite, a species that has been in serious decline on Long Island since the 1980s. We on the South Fork didn’t chase up a single woodcock on Saturday, while the Montauk count had 16.

White-throated sparrows were the most common of the 14 sparrows on the Montauk count, numbering 722, and were our most common sparrows among the three species spotted on Saturday, with 57.

Blue jays and cardinals showed up on Saturday in higher than normal numbers, with 83 and 50 counted respectively. The same two species were also numerous on the Montauk count, 459 and 352. Numbers of fish crows have been increasing dramatically during the new millennium. In 1982 in the greater Sag Harbor territory only one was observed; this past Saturday there were 6 counted compared to 49 common crows, while the Montauk count had 3 of these southerners and a whopping 715 of the common ones.

Common grackles and red-winged blackbirds can number in the thousands at this time of the year, but the Montauk count only had 50 and 55, respectively, while we in the greater Sag Harbor area had neither. European starlings will be here in large numbers year after year forever, it seems. On New Year’s Eve I counted a flock of about 500 weaving over the farm fields between Route 114 and Long Lane in East Hampton. The Montauk count had 1,212 of them, while Sag Harbor had 50. Both counts recorded robins. Neither count found an American bluebird.

These counts take place each year all over the world, and the results are tabulated to show which bird is doing well, which one is doing poorly, and which one may have disappeared from earth altogether.

The best bird story to fall upon my ear in the New Year had nothing to do with the counts. On Saturday, midmorning, Karen and Barbara Rubinstein were driving past Mill Pond in Water Mill when they saw a bald eagle hovering over a single ruddy duck on the water. The ruddy duck repeatedly dove under, as it is wont to do, while the eagle remained overhead, following its course. After the eagle missed one surfacing of the duck, it stayed the course and waited for another. This time it successfully grabbed the little guy in its talons and flew off with it. This was a clear omen of things to come, as now that our official American bird is re-establishing itself in the area. Fish and ducks beware!

Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].