Nature Notes: End of a Tough Winter

The snow is melting away quickly, and the ice in the bays is disappearing almost as fast. Spring is three days away. Things are heating up. The black widow spider that lives between the panes of my south-facing window has made her end-of-winter debut. I’m sure she hasn’t eaten a thing since the end of summer, as she is the same size as when she retreated in the fall.

We are all waiting for the ospreys to return. Howard Reisman’s spot on North Sea Harbor in the hamlet of North Sea is generally early on the osprey’s return list as they feed on the alewives that annually leave Peconic Bay, then the harbor, and make their way upstream to Big Fresh Pond. It’s an annual event that surely dates back to the founding of Southampton.

The winter birds that have been feeding day in and day out in my yard and that of my neighbors haven’t appeared for four days. Are they out in the wilds looking for food uncovered by the melting snow? It’s hard to say, but perhaps it’s because of the sharp-shinned hawk that flew into my yard and landed on a bush today. A week ago I found the feathers of a freshly killed mourning dove. Once a bird predator like a Cooper’s hawk, peregrine falcon, merlin, kestrel, or sharp-shin starts hanging around, the feeder birds are wont to find a safer place to spend the day.

It’s been a very tough winter for those mute swans the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been trying to get rid of. Last week Terry Sullivan found two dead ones along the Redwood Causeway in Sag Harbor. Swans have evolved long necks so they can reach down to the bottom of ponds, coves, and shallow bays to feed on the aquatic vegetation rooted there. All of the freshwater ponds and many of the salt ponds, tidal creeks, coves, and bays have been frozen for more than a month so that the swans have little to feed on. In order to find open water they’ve had to use the ocean or the middle of the bays and Long Island Sound. Calm such waters are good for over-nighting, but much too deep for feeding. It looks like Mother Nature is saving the D.E.C. some embarrassing work.

Canada geese are not having an easy time of it either. They feed like swans when they’re in the water and feed in the fields when they are not covered with snow and ice. A dead Canada goose showed up in Otter Pond in Sag Harbor. On the other hand, the black ducks, mallards, and other puddle ducks that use the spring-fed shallows of Otter Pond and East Hampton Village’s Nature Trail aren’t doing all that bad. Keep in mind that groundwater that seeps up in springs here and there is about 55 degrees, so upwelling spots like those along the south and southeastern edges of Otter Pond manage to stay unfrozen during even the coldest of winters.

While we wait for the osprey’s return several of us have been fascinated by the number of bald eagles, both white-headed adults and brown-headed young, around. They have been especially plentiful around Sagg Pond east of Bridgehampton where Greg Boeklen has been making a photographic study of them. Bald eagles take live prey, many times injured prey, and also frequently scavenge, which osprey very rarely do. They are both the generalists and the opportunists of the raptor clan. Because of the latter trait, Ben Franklin felt them unworthy of “national bird” distinction.

Nevertheless, they are wonderful to look at, wonderful to watch, and are fantastic flyers and nest builders. And, we are told, they often mate for life.

This year has been the biggest one since 1991 for eastern Long Island bald eagle sightings. It may have something to do with the fact that at least two pairs are steady East End breeders. The Nature Conservancy’s Sagg Swamp Preserve, comprising the headwaters of Sagg Pond, has many tall trees that could easily support an eagle’s nest or two. Don’t be surprised if a pair takes up residence there this year.

One sign of spring is the song of the red-winged black birds. They’ve been regularly “okareeing” for a week now around Big Reed and Oyster Ponds in Montauk, according to Victoria Bustamante, who can hear them from her house.

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