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Visitors to West Meadow Beach take a stroll down Trustees Road. Photo by Raina Angelier

By Cayla Rosenhagen

Cayla Rosenhagen

As we embark on a new year, many of us have resolved to make this year better than the last. Let’s aim to make 2022 a year to smile more and support our neighbors as well as the planet. Our community has so much to offer in helping us achieve our goals. I’d like to share some of my favorite environmentally conscious, self-care resolutions. 

Improve Your Diet and Shop at Local Farmers’ Markets

Looking for a way to support local businesses, enhance your eating habits, and save the planet? Look no further than the Port Jefferson Winter Farmers Market held on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Village Center, 101-A East Broadway, Port Jefferson through April 25 and the Huntington Farmers Market open on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the John J. Flanagan Center, 423 Park Avenue, Huntington. Buying from local vendors has many advantages. Not only are you purchasing a wide variety of nutritious, in-season goods, but you are also supporting the local economy. In addition, you are contributing to energy conservation since local vendors don’t have to transport their products over long distances. 

Get Fit in the Great Outdoors 

Frank Melville Memorial Park. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen

The ever-popular resolution to start or improve an exercise regimen can have physical, mental, and emotional health benefits. And the green spaces of Long Island’s north shore provide an ideal setting to accomplish your workout goals. With so many to choose from, I’d like to share some of my top picks. 

Historic Frank Melville Memorial Park in Setauket offers a picturesque, 0.4-mile, paved loop around Mill Pond. Enjoy the local wildlife, such as ducks, songbirds, deer, and turtles, within easy view. Only minutes away is Trustees Road at West Meadow Beach in Stony Brook. Formerly home to beachfront cottages, the road is now closed off to car traffic. The paved, scenic, 1-mile path is a popular destination for walking, jogging, biking, and skating, and getting a dose of Vitamin “Sea.”

Setauket Greenway Trail. Photo by Raina Angelier

Stretching 3.5 miles through old-growth forests and neighborhoods, the Setauket to Port Jefferson Station Greenway has trailheads with parking at Limroy Lane in Setauket and Hallock Avenue and Main Street in Port Jefferson Station. On any given day, you can find joggers, families pushing strollers, bicyclists, and people out for a walk with their pooches on this hilly, paved path. If you are looking for a wider array of surfaces and difficulty levels, Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park is the place for you. Choose from taking a stroll along their well-maintained, 0.75-mile boardwalk along the Sound, or hiking the many miles of wooded trails, some of which offer challenging inclines. 

Whether you decide to visit one of these parks or one of LI’s dozens more, be sure to keep the health of Mother Nature in mind. Abide by the “leave only footprints” rule and please be mindful of parks where no pets are permitted. If they are allowed, keep your pets leashed and pick up after them. Go that extra mile by toting a reusable water bottle, as opposed to a disposable, plastic one, and bring along something to pick up any litter you may encounter. 

Embrace Your Green Thumb

Oriole on Native Mulberry Tree. Photo by Raina Angeiler

Despite the chilly weather, now is the perfect time to begin planning your own backyard garden. There is no greater satisfaction than eating a homegrown tomato fresh from the vine. In the most literal sense, you get to reap what you sow. Not only will you save money on your produce bill, but gardening is also a natural stress reliever. Beyond the veggie garden, consider planting native plants and making eco-friendly decisions in how you care for your yard. 

For example, traditional fertilizer often finds its way into our water supply and causes a multitude of health issues for us and the planet. Composting is a much safer option. Native plants are evolutionarily designed to thrive in our climate and therefore require less care and less water. To go a step further, make your property a haven for wildlife by providing edible native plants, a water source, and plenty of shelter. By encouraging wildlife such as birds and bats to your yard, these critters will return the favor by eating up the pesky bugs in your yard. This is a wonderful alternative to dangerous pesticides. Reach out to Four Harbors Audubon Society for assistance with this through their “Bird Oasis” program. Visit their website at https://4has.org/bird-oasis.

Prize-winning fruits and vegetables in the horticulture division at a 3VGC Exhibit. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen

No room to garden at your residence? No problem. How about participating in a community garden? In addition to getting to know fellow neighborhood gardeners, you will also get the chance to learn from experts. I recently spoke with Ann Pellegrino, the president of Hobbs Farm in Centereach. Here, you can volunteer your time to work in their fields without committing to being the sole caretaker of an individual plot. Your efforts can contribute to supplying local soup kitchens and food pantries with about 30,000lbs of organically grown produce annually. If you’re unable to volunteer your time but looking to support the mission of Hobbs Farm while supporting your health, purchase a Community Supported Agriculture membership to receive farm-fresh produce weekly. The farm also runs a farm-stand during the warmer weather. For more information, visit https://hobbsfarm.info.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County is a valuable resource for new and experienced gardeners. In speaking with Roxanne Zimmer, the community horticulture specialist, I learned the cooperative extension offers a variety of learning opportunities at public libraries and you don’t need to be a patron of that library to attend. For anyone interested in becoming a Master Gardener, CCE Suffolk will be accepting applications for their 16-week training program until January 31. More info can be found at ccesuffolk.org/gardening/community-gardens-in-suffolk-county.

Joining the Three Village Garden Club is another wonderful way to learn more about horticulture. They offer a variety of classes, gatherings, and exhibits. The club dates back almost a century and will resume its meetings at the Setauket Neighborhood House in early spring. More info to come soon. 

Reduce Your Meat and Dairy Intake

The animal agriculture industry produces more greenhouse gases than the world’s vehicle exhaust. Aside from this, natural habitats worldwide, including the oxygen-producing rainforests in South America, are being torn down to create pastures for livestock to graze in, dislocating thousands of native species. By partaking in “Meatless Mondays” or simply reducing your meat and dairy intake all-around, you can be part of a worldwide movement to slow the progress of global warming and depletion of the ozone layer. 

Vegan Artichoke Spinach Fettuccine

Reducing your intake of red meat and other animal products has also been scientifically proven to have a plethora of health benefits. Some of these include reduced risk of having a stroke, heart disease, and obesity. Challenge yourself to get creative in the kitchen with vegan and vegetarian recipes with the produce you purchase at local farmers’ markets. Take advantage of the fabulous, free cooking classes presented by our local libraries featuring vegetarian cuisine ranging from veggie stromboli at Middle Country Public Library to vegetable empanadas at Emma S. Clark Memorial Library. Check out your local library’s webpage for more information.

Pay it Forward

Reflect and give thanks by donating to a cause that embraces what’s important to you. Being charitable is not only a gift to others but a gift to yourself. According to multiple studies from around the globe, generous behavior is linked to a happier, healthier, more satisfying, and less stressful life. Whether you make a monetary contribution, a donation of goods, or choose to volunteer your time, there are plenty of local charities that would be grateful for your support. Here are some ideas to consider.

Have some clothing or furniture you no longer use? Angela’s House is a non-profit which assists families with medically frail children and will gladly accept these items for their fundraising Home Store located in Medford. Visit https://www.angelashouse.org to learn more about their mission and ways you can help. Looking for a way to help furry friends? There are many ways to support Save-A-Pet Animal Rescue and Adoption Center in Port Jefferson Station, including financially, assisting with animal care, and donating items from their Wish List. See https://www.saveapetli.net for more information. 

Interested in donating to an organization that benefits many causes? The Harry Chapin Foundation in Huntington awards grants to charities supporting agriculture, the arts, education, and environmental causes. Donate through their website at https://harrychapinfoundation.org. 

In saying goodbye to 2021, let us welcome the new year with these simple, yet impactful resolutions for a happier and healthier you, an even stronger community, and a greener Earth. Happy New Year, everyone!

Cayla Rosenhagen is a local high school student who enjoys capturing the unique charm of the community through photography and journalism. She serves on the board of directors for the Four Harbors Audubon Society and Brookhaven’s Youth Board, and is the founder and coordinator of Beach Bucket Brigade, a community outreach program dedicated to environmental awareness, engagement, and education. She is also an avid birder, hiker, and artist who is concurrently enrolled in college, pursuing a degree in teaching.

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Participants gather for the 4HAS's first Children's Birding Adventure. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
From left, Iris and Cayla Rosenhagen. Photo by Raina Angelier
A little girl searches for birds. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
Above, a birder takes a break on the steps of the Setauket Grist Mill to check out his binoculars. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen
Cayla Rosenhagen with a fellow bird lover. Photo by Raina Angelier
A swan and her six cygnets. Photo by Cayla Rosenhagen

By Cayla Rosenhagen

Cayla Rosenhagen

“Look, look! There’s a bird up in this tree … and there’s a nest, too!”

A young boy with binoculars pressed against his face cheerfully announces what he has found. An American Robin flies to her nest, cozily tucked in a nearby cedar; the child notices she has a worm in her bill. More young birders gather to watch in awe of the mother robin feeding her recently hatched chicks.

Nothing compares to watching a child’s face light up with happiness and fascination as they become immersed in the world of birds. I had the joy of seeing this firsthand. On June 27th, my sister Iris and I launched the first Children’s Birding Adventure at Frank Melville Memorial Park in Setauket for Four Harbors Audubon Society. 

The event began early in the afternoon at the entrance to the park, as enthusiastic families circled around to introduce themselves on the lawn overlooking the lake. Their children ranged in age from infancy to age 10 and were bubbling over with questions and stories about wildlife they had seen. One of the participants, Olivia, 8, a birder for about two years, looked forward to seeing a Northern Cardinal, one of her favorite backyard birds. 

Before our walk began, the children engaged in a round of nature-inspired activities, including Sparrow Says (Simon Says with an aviary twist) and a storytime, featuring a book by Kermit Cummings entitled A Backyard Birding Adventure: What’s in Your Yard? To further their birding knowledge, we presented the budding ornithologists with a photo album of birds we were likely to spot on our adventure. Bird BINGO cards, illustrating the same feathered friends, were handed out to all the children so they could record their sightings in a novel manner. Each youngster was then lent a pair of child-sized binoculars and taught how to use them.

Eagerly, we headed down the path encircling the picturesque Mill Pond. As we strolled the half-mile paved loop, a dozen children and their families surveyed their surroundings for birds and were met with great success. Catbirds, swallows, woodpeckers, swans, and warblers filled the lenses of every pair of binoculars. Little eyes spotted blue jays, sparrows, and egrets; the children announced their birding discoveries to the group with delight. The group paused along the old stone bridge and I pointed out turtles on a floating log and the blackbirds who nest in the nearby reeds. When birds weren’t readily in sight, scurrying chipmunks, zigzagging butterflies, and the iridescent wings of dragonflies captivated the young minds. As the hour-long event came to a close, it was so gratifying to hear from both parents and kids alike that fun was had by all, and much was learned about the natural world.  

The members of Four Harbors Audubon Society have been my role models and mentors for many years and continue to inspire me. I started participating in their monthly bird walks when I was the age of many of the children who attended Saturday’s event. At age 16, I now serve on the Board of Directors for 4HAS, and it is a privilege for me to contribute to the younger generation’s love and appreciation of birds. Who knows? Birding may become a lifelong passion for them, as it has for me.

In the future, Four Harbors Audubon Society plans to run the Children’s Birding Adventures on a seasonal basis. If you are interested in joining us for our next program, please email us at [email protected]. 

Cayla Rosenhagen is a local high school student who enjoys capturing the unique charm of the community through photojournalism. In addition to the Four Harbors Audubon Society, she serves on the board of directors for Brookhaven’s Youth Board, and is the founder and coordinator of Beach Bucket Brigade, a community outreach program dedicated to environmental awareness, engagement, and education. She is also an avid birder, hiker, and artist who is concurrently enrolled in college, pursuing a degree in teaching.

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Lulu the Coatimundi
Superintendent of Highways Daniel P. Losquadro with the Ecology Site Animal Preserve's resident American Buffalo
Finn the hybrid fox peers out of his glass enclosure.
Holtsville Ecology Site Director April Perry with a Nubian goat
The resident bobcat
A new goat house built by an Eagle Scout
Holtsville Ecology Site Director April Perry with a Nubian goat
A Nubian goat
Protocols are in place at the Ecology Site.

By Heidi Sutton

When my daughter was little, one of her favorite places to go was the Town of Brookhaven’s Holtsville Ecology Site Animal Preserve or “The Little Zoo” as we liked to call it. She would run through the open gates to say hi to the Nubian goats with their long floppy ears as I retrieved feed from the 25-cent vending machine. She would marvel at the buffalo, see if any birds were in the large birdhouses, and then off to see the ducks, rabbits, fox and Rascal the coatimundi. A quick stop to see the eagles and hawks and then down the inviting path (overflowing with beautiful flowers grown in the attached greenhouse) to Honey and Pooh Bear’s enclosure, the preserve’s resident black bears. 

Sometimes we would stay for an hour, sometimes I would pack a lunch and we would head over to the picnic tables by the playground and grab an ice cream from the ice cream truck waiting in the parking lot. Before we left, we always had to head over to the koi pond behind the greenhouse to see the turtles. It was a ritual many town residents have enjoyed spring through fall since the park opened in 1979. Best of all, it was always free, except the ice cream! It is a special place.

Last March the animal preserve was closed to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic, briefly reopened in September but then shut its doors again. Now there is a spring awakening. Brookhaven Town Highway Superintendent Daniel P. Losquadro recently announced that the preserve will partially reopen to the public, albeit with a few changes, on Saturday, May 1. 

The preserve will be open Thursday through Monday with limited spring hours from May 1 to 28; reservations can be made every 15 minutes from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Beginning Memorial Day weekend, on May 29, reservations will expand from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Only Town of Brookhaven residents with reservations and proof of residency will be permitted to enter the animal preserve. Reservations to book a visit must be made online at www.BrookhavenNY.gov/Ecology.

“Until we see exactly what the demand is, we’re going to limit admission to only Brookhaven Town residents. We’re hoping by the summer to have the entire facility back open as it was before and just using normal social distancing protocols,” said Superintendent Losquadro during a tour on April 9.

There has been a silver lining, however. While the preserve remained closed, the town took the opportunity to fix up and enhance the animal enclosures. “We really embarked on some infrastructure improvement projects that otherwise would’ve been very difficult for us,” said Losquadro. Retaining walls, gates and railings have been rebuilt, metal fencing has been installed, new concrete has been poured, the eagle house has received a complete makeover, and the large bird cages have been replaced. 

The animal preserve has also continued to be the recipient of several Eagle Scout projects, including new houses for the goats and ducks, hutches for the rabbits and enrichment projects by the Boys and Girl Scouts to keep the animals busy and active during the day. 

“We  were very fortunate throughout this entire process that we’ve been able to continue to make improvements and prepare for reopening the facility for our residents,” said Losquadro.

While Pooh Bear and Rascal have passed away from old age, over 100 injured or non-releasable wild animals and farm animals call the preserve home including a new coatimundi named Lulu, Phantom the arctic fox and two hybrid wolves, Drax and Thanos. All have a story. Many, including the coatamundi, were kept as pets illegally and were confiscated by the SPCA, the DEC, etc.; some were hit by cars and were not able to be released back into the wild. But for all, the Ecology Center is a sanctuary with a caring staff led by director April Perry who is excited to reopen the preserve. 

“It’s going to be a soft opening,” said Perry who explained that when the facility reopens May 1, only a portion will be accessible, from the main entrance up to the eagle exhibit. Animals available for viewing at this time include the Arctic fox, alpaca, bald eagle, bobcat, Boer goats, buffalo, coatimundi, hybrid fox, the hybrid wolves, llama, mini pigs, nubian goats, pine martin, prairie dogs, rabbits, red fox, red tail hawk, and skunk.

Although the animal preserve is always free, Perry would like to remind people that a donation box is situated at the entrance. “When people donate, that money goes directly to feeding the animals and vet care,” she said. 

“Unfortunately (because of the pandemic) those efforts had slowed down a bit and the town actually absorbed all of that cost to make sure that we weren’t lacking for care of the animals or feed. Now all those donations go directly to offset those costs,” added Losquadro.

“I don’t think we would have survived without the town’s help,” said Perry. “I have been here 34 years and I am so impressed how much Dan has put into the Ecology Site and how much we are growing and moving forward. It makes my heart happy. This place means a lot to me — it’s like my second home.”

Perry also attributes the preserve’s continuing success to her staff. “I have incredible employees — they care. They are here seven days a week making sure the animals have water, have feed, that they are clean and safe and everyone steps up to the plate and they do it.”

COVID-19 safety protocols will be strictly enforced with precautions — including mandatory masks, limited admissions, and social distancing — to help ensure the safety of all visitors and staff. In addition, the Information Center and Greenhouses will not be open but access to restrooms will be available. 

“If it were up to me we would be fully open but we have to do things carefully, we don’t want to create an environment that is hazardous,” explained Losquadro. “We are all very excited — we are looking forward to May 1. The preserve is here so people can come visit the animals and learn and experience it — it’s not to keep them hidden away. We’re anxious to get this incredible place back open.”

The Town of Brookhaven Ecology Site and Animal Preserve is located at 249 Buckley Road, Holtsville. For more information, please call 631-758-9664.

All photos by Heidi Sutton

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Diamondback Terrapin. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

By John L. Turner

Taking a deep gulp of air sometime in October, probably around the middle of the month, the diamondback terrapin slipped beneath the surface of Conscience Bay, swimming downward to its muddy bottom.  

Of course, the turtle didn’t know it but that breath of air would be the last one it was to take for many months; perhaps for as long as half a year or more. All terrapins are asleep now, perhaps dreaming deeply reptilian thoughts, during the many months they’ll spend on the surface of, or ensconced within, the muddy bottom of Long Island’s harbors and bays. 

Out of sight but not out of my mind, this fascinating adaptation for survival is a cold-weather strategy, the turtle having gotten its cue that its time for winter dormancy (known as brumation, it is the reptilian equivalence of mammalian hibernation) from the cooling water temperatures of autumn. Here in their muddy beds, formally known as hibernacula, terrapins metabolically shut down, significantly decreasing their need for oxygen. The little amount of dissolved oxygen received to fuel their metabolism comes from the water and is absorbed through skin near the cloaca. They will wait for Spring’s cue — warming waters — to trigger their re-emergence in their cyclical and alternating pattern of life: dormancy, activity, dormancy, activity.

The diamondback terrapin, so named for the diamond-shaped scutes on its back, is a gorgeous, brightly marked coastal turtle that frequents brackish waters around Long Island. They are found in all of Long Island’s north shore coastal embayments. I’ve seen them in Stony Brook Harbor, Setauket Harbor, West Meadow Beach and creek, the aforementioned Conscience Bay, Little Bay, Mt. Sinai Harbor, and the lower, more saltier reaches of Nissequogue River. The species is also found in the Peconic Bay system as well as the South shore bays and creeks. 

Off Long Island it is found in the lower stretches of the Hudson River and, further afield along the East Coast, it occurs from Massachusetts south to Florida, wrapping around the Gulf Coast to Texas. There are seven recognized subspecies.

Diamondback Terrapin

Terrapins re-emerge in May and become active, warmed by the strengthening sun. Soon the species turns its attention to two primal instincts: feeding and reproducing. With a strong beak pretty much anything in the marshes, along the shoreline, water column, and bay bottom is fair game — hard shelled crabs, snails, and mussels, fish if they can catch them and carrion. During the first several days they satisfy a ravenous appetite, driven by a desire to replenish what they’ve lost during the long winter dormancy.

Mating takes place in water with the much smaller males (the females can be 2x to 3x bigger than the males) clasping onto the female’s shell, assisted by wrapping their long tails underneath to anchor. And soon it is the time when most terrapins are seen, as the female leaves the water and move ashore in search of suitable sandy locations into which to lay her precious cargo — her pink-tinged grape-sized eggs containing the next generation of terrapins. 

When she finds the place to her liking (often by sniffing the sand), she slowly and methodically excavates the sand with her back feet, using the webbing as a sort of shovel, quickly making a flask-shaped nest cavity about six inches deep into which she’ll drop between as few as four to as many as twenty eggs (the average is about a dozen for clutch). If all goes right they’ll hatch in about seventy to eighty days. Eggs laid later in the summer will often overwinter and the hatchlings emerge the next Spring, thereby avoiding exposure to freezing temperatures.

Terrapins face a gauntlet of threats in a human-populated world. They are hit by boats and jet skis, run over by cars on their way to nesting sites, drown in crab pots (lured into the pots by the bait) and intentionally killed for food. Fortunately, steps have been taken to address these last two threats. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) closed the legal season in 2017 so terrapins can no longer be legally harvested for food. 

Terrapins have long been eaten  by humans — terrapin soup and stew were once enormously popular dishes — and in such numbers that boggle the imagination. As but one example, in 1891 in Maryland alone, 45 tons of terrapins were harvested. If you assume an average terrapin weighs a pound each that’s 90,000 terrapins killed in one year in one state. Given this intense pressure it’s no surprise that terrapins have declined steeply in abundance.

New York State closing the legal harvest was quickly followed by steps to curtail drowning in crab pots. Conservationists successfully advocated for a requirement to have crab pots placed in shallow water be equipped with terrapin excluder devices (TEDS). TEDS , 1 3/4 inches high by 4 3/4 inches wide, are placed on the vents of the pot secured by zip ties or hog rings. The TEDS allow for blue-claw crabs to enter the pot but block out 80 to 90% of the terrapins. 

In an effort to defray the financial impact to baymen, both the Seatuck Environmental Association and the Long Island Chapter of The Nature Conservancy purchased thousands of TEDS and distributed them free of charge to baymen through NYSDEC’s Division of Marine Resources in East Setauket. 

Climate change may be the mother of all impacts to terrapins and underscores how the changing and generally warming climate can cause little understood or realized adverse impacts to species. As it relates to the sex development of the embryo in the egg, terrapins exhibit (as do many turtles and other reptiles) what is known as temperature sex determination, meaning the sex is not genetically determined but, rather, is determined by the temperature of the egg in the nesting cavity. 

Lower temperatures produce males while higher ones create females. Historically, in cavities one could expect a mix of sex ratios, probably close to 50/50, with females nearer the surface of the nest cavity where it’s a little bit warmer and males created in the lower portion of the cavity where its cooler. The fear of climate change, then, is that it may create increasingly skewered sex ratio toward females and away from males if ambient air temperature continues to increase, as it is expected to do.

We are still very much in the grips of winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, but the Earth continues its circuit around the sun. So Spring WILL arrive and with it those harbingers of Spring Long Islanders look forward to seeing — garden bed snowbells first, followed by crocuses and daffodils, red-winged blackbirds returning from the South, and the choruses of Spring Peepers ringing out from ponds and sumps. 

A bit later, as the Earth moves further along in its sojourn around the solar system’s central radiance, the heads of terrapins will appear, like so many floating wine bottle corks, dotting the wavelet surfaces of our local bays and harbors. But for now — in the middle of winter’s embrace — we leave them to their dreams.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Photo from Pixabay

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

A year ago, most of us were going about our usual lives, shopping for food, carpooling our children, occasionally eating out, going to a movie or a play, traveling with our families during Presidents’ Week, entertaining friends in our houses, and working at our job sites.

Today the only pursuit still left on that list is shopping at the supermarket. We didn’t know that within two weeks, our lives would start to change, and that a month later the entire world would be altered.

The change agent? The novel coronavirus was the villain, otherwise known as COVID-19. Seemingly out of nowhere, the virus launched itself onto the human population. Where did it come from? How did it start? Was China somehow at fault?

A World Health Organization team of scientists returned last week from Wuhan, China, considered to be the first place with a coronavirus outbreak. Dr. Peter Daszak, who has worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and is president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York, was a member of the team, and was interviewed about their findings by The New York Times.

They walked around the Huanan Seafood Market, which is regarded as the source and is still blocked off to all but disease investigators. According to Daszak, the Chinese are “absolutely petrified of this virus catching hold again.” They were following severe protocols of testing, isolating and quarantining even as they were working closely with the W.H.O group.

The market was closed on December 31 or January 1, and a team of Chinese scientists then went in and swabbed every surface, collecting over 900 samples. Many were positive, including some animal carcasses. “A farm with rabbits [that was at the market] could have been really critical,” Daszak said. Or bats, stray cats, rats, live snakes, turtles and frogs, all of which were there. There were 10 stalls that sold wildlife, some peopled by vendors from South China provinces where the virus is found in bats. Some of the earliest patients with the disease had links to other markets as well, and some had no links to the Huanan market at all.

The final hypothesis of the W.H.O. team, and the Chinese scientists who worked with them throughout their visit, was that the viral pathway was wildlife, through a domesticated wildlife link, into Wuhan. In particular, Daszak suspects bats, from Southeast Asia or southern China, of getting into a domesticated wildlife farm. The viruses then jump from infected animals on the food supply chain or from their handlers to the dense population of humans that buy the animals at the markets.

There are actually many strains of this abundant family of coronaviruses, and bats and other mammals carry them. The SARS and MERS versions are just a couple that spilled over the species barrier and infected humans. So inevitably there will be more after COVID-19, and they could even cause future pandemics. Aware of that reality, some infectious disease scientists are working to produce a vaccine that will nullify all coronaviruses. Researchers are calling for a global effort to develop such a one-shot vaccine or a super vaccine. There have even been some promising early results.

Coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s, but were initially thought only to cause mild colds. Then in 2002, a new coronavirus appeared. That was SARS-CoV, named for severe acute respiratory syndrome, and it was deadly.

In 2012, a second species of the coronavirus spilled over from bats, causing MERS, which stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, first reported in Saudi Arabia, and today we have SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19.

As we now know from the graphic of the virus shown by the media, the virus has spikes, which are proteins on its surface. If an antibody can be formed that sticks to the spike, it can prevent the pathogen from entering human cells. A genetic molecule, created by BioNTech called messenger RNA, works that way in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19.

Now we need a pan-coronavirus vaccine. It’s on the way.

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Illustration depicting Falcatakely amid nonavian dinosaurs and other creatures during the Late Cretaceous in Madagascar. (Credit: Mark Witton)

By Daniel Dunaief

Dromomeron and Falcatakely lived nowhere near each other. They also lived millions of years apart, offering the kind of evolutionary pieces to different puzzles that thrill paleontologists.

Left, Alan Turner holds a model of the maxilla of Falcatakely, with a CT reconstruction on his computer screen.

These two creatures, the first a three-foot long dinosaur precursor discovered in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, and the second a crow-sized bird fossil discovered in Madagascar, have taken center stage in recent scientific circles.

What they have in common is Alan Turner, Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

The discoveries, which were made over a decade ago, were recently parts of publications in consecutive issues of the prestigious journal Nature. “It’s really exciting,” Turner said. “I definitely feel fortunate” to contribute to these two publications.

Turner, who is not the lead author in either study, emphasized that these papers were only possible through teamwork. “These large, collaborative efforts are one of the ways these really significant discoveries can happen,” he said.

The work that includes Dromomeron, in particular, is one that “any one of our groups couldn’t have done [alone]. It hinged on a series of discoveries across multiple continents.”

Each paper helps fill out different parts of the evolutionary story. The Dromomeron discovery helps offer an understanding of a major evolutionary transition from the Triassic Period, while the Falcatakely find offers a look at the diversification of birds during the Cretaceous Period.

Dromomeron

Starting with the paper in which Dromomeron appears, researchers used a collection of dinosaur precursor fossils to study a smaller group of animals called lagerpetids, whose name means “rabbit lizard” or “rabbit reptile.”

These creatures lived during the age of the earliest relatives of lizards, turtles and crocodylians.

Above, a reconstruction of a pterosaur, a lagerpetid from the Triassic Period/Rodolfo Nogueria

Pterosaurs, which have a characteristic elongated fourth finger that forms a large portion of their wing, lived 160 million years ago, which means that the earlier, flightless lagerpetids roamed the Earth about 50 million years before pterosaurs.

Turner discovered Dromomeron in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico 14 years ago. Since then, other scientists have unearthed new bones from this prehistoric rabbit lizard group in North America, Brazil, Argentina and Madagascar.

Scientists involved in this paper used micro-CT scans and 3D scanning to compare lagerpetid and pterosaur skeletal fossils to demonstrate overlaps in their anatomy. The shape and size of the brain and inner ear of these lagerpetid fossils share similarities with pterosaurs.

The inner ear, Turner explained, is particularly important for animals like the pterosaur, which likely used it the way modern birds do when they are in flight to help determine their location in space and to keep their balance.

Lagerpetids, however, didn’t fly, so paleontologists aren’t sure how these ancient rabbit lizards used their inner ear.

Turner said the Dromomeron discovery was initially more of a curiosity. In fact, when researchers found it, “we had a blackboard in this collection space where we were working,” Turner recalled. “It was unceremoniously referred to as ‘Reptile A.’ There weren’t a lot of things to compare it to. At that point we knew we had a thing but we didn’t know what it was.”

A colleague of Turners, Randall Irmis, Chief Curator and Curator of Paleontology, Associate Professor of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, traveled to Argentina, where he noticed a creature that was similar to the find in New Mexico.

Irmis’s trip “allowed our team to confirm our comparison [between Dromomeron and Lagerpeton] first-hand. From there, we were able to build out the larger evolutionary context,” Turner explained in an email.

Falcatakely

Meanwhile, Turner and Patrick O’Connor, Professor of Anatomy and Neuroscience at Ohio University and lead author on the study, shared their discovery of a bird they located in Madagascar that they called Falcatakely.

The bird’s name is a combination of Latin and Malagasy, the language of the island nation of Madagascar, which means “small scythe” and describes the beak shape.

Right, an artist reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous enantiornithine bird Falcatakely forsterae with its unique beak/Sketch by Mark Witton

The scientists found a partial skull in a quarry in Madagascar. The fossil was embedded in rocks. Turner and O’Connor analyzed it through CT scanning and through careful physical and digital preparation by their colleague Joe Groenke, laboratory coordinator for the O’Connor lab.

The discovery of grooves on the side of the face for a beak took the researchers by surprise.

“As the face began to emerge from the rock, we immediately knew that it was something very special, if not entirely unique,” O’Connor said in a press release. 

“Mesozoic birds with such high, long faces are completely unknown, with Falcatakely providing a great opportunity to reconsider ideas around head and beak evolution in the lineage leading to modern birds.”

As with the Dromomeron find, the discovery of Falcatakely didn’t provide a eureka moment when the scientists found it 10 years ago.

“We didn’t know [what we had] when we collected this material,” Turner said. “It wasn’t until we CT scanned the block in an effort to begin the preparation that we said, ‘Wait a second. There’s something really weird in this block. The flat part turned out to be the side of the face.”

Turner originally thought it could have been the breast bone of a larger dinosaur. During the pandemic, he has come back to projects that have been sitting around for several years. Some have “probably danced on the periphery that have now come to the dance,” in terms of his focus.

In looking back on the ingredients that made these two Nature papers possible, Turner added another element. These publications underline “the importance of investing in long term field work expeditions,” he said.

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Plum Island’s habitats include beach and dune covered in native grasses and shrubs (Photo by Robert Lorenz)
The archipelago of Plum Island hosts Roseate Terns, a federally endangered species (Photo by AJ Hand)
Above, Plum Island’s acres of freshwater marsh are lush with life. (Photo by Robert Lorenz)
Plum Island Preserve Vision Concept

By John L. Turner

Situated a mile east of Orient Point, the eastern tip of the North Fork and separated from it by Plum Gut, lies Plum Island, an 822-acre pork-chop shaped island that is owned by you and me (being the federal taxpayers that we are). 

The island’s most well-known feature is the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), situated in the northwestern corner of the property, but Plum Island is so much more. On the western edge lays the Plum Island lighthouse which was built in 1869 to warn mariners of the treacherous currents of Plum Gut. On the east there’s the brooding presence of Fort Terry, a relict of the Spanish-American War, with scattered evidence in the form of barracks, gun batteries, and the tiny tracks of a toy gauge railroad once used to move cannon shells from storage to those concrete batteries. (The cannons never fired except during drills).

And there’s the stuff that excites naturalists:

■ The largest seal haul-out site in southern New England located at the eastern tip of the island where throngs of harbor and grey seals swim along the rocky coastline or bask, like fat sausages, on the off-shore rocks that punctuate the surface of the water.

■ The more than 225 different bird species, one-quarter of all the species found in North America, that breed here (like the bank swallows that excavate burrows in the bluff face on the south side of the island), or pass through on their seasonal migratory journeys, or overwinter.

■ Dozens of rare plants, like ladies’-tresses orchids, blackjack oak, and scotch lovage that flourish in the forests, thickets, meadows, and shorelines of Plum Island.

■ A large freshwater pond in the southwestern section of the island that adds visual delight and biological diversity to the island. 

■ And, of course, the ubiquitous beach plums that gave the island its name!

For the past decade a struggle has ensued to make right what many individuals, organizations of all sorts (including the more than 120-member Preserve Plum Island Coalition), and many public officials consider a significant wrong — Congress’s order to sell Plum Island to the highest bidder, forever losing it as a public space. 

This ill-conceived path of auctioning the island was set in motion by a half-page paragraph buried in a several thousand- page bill to fund government agencies in 2009. Fortunately, this struggle has been won — the wrong has been righted — as language included in the recently adopted 2021 budget bill for the federal government, repeals the requirement that the General Services Administration sell the island. 

Thank you to Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Senators Christopher Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and members of Congress Lee Zeldin,Tom Suozzi, Rosa DeLauro and Joe Courtney!

Thanks is also due to New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright who sponsored legislation that was signed into law creating a Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle area in the waters surrounding Plum Island.

While this victory is a vital and necessary step to ultimately protect Plum Island, it is a temporary and incomplete one since the island can still be sold to a private party through the normal federal land disposition process if no government agency at the federal, state, or local level steps up to take title to the island. 

The Coalition’s next task, then, is to ensure that a federal agency such as the National Park Service (National Monument?), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (National Wildlife Refuge?) or the state of New York (New York State Park Preserve?) expresses a willingness to accept stewardship of this magnificent island, since they get first dibs to the island if they want it. A key enticement toward this end is the $18.9 million commitment in the budget to clean up the few contaminated spots on the island.

Why the sale in the first place? Since 1956 PIADC has been conducting top level research on highly communicable animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease. To this end, several years ago staff developed a vaccine for this highly contagious disease that holds great promise in controlling the disease globally.

Despite this successful research, Congress determined the facility was obsolete and should be replaced, approving the construction of a new state-of-the-art facility, known as the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), to be located on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. NBAF is complete and will soon be fully operational so as a result PIADC is no longer needed; PIADC is expected to transfer all operations to Kansas and close for good in 2023.

Plum Island is a rare place — a remarkable asset that holds the promise of enriching Long Islanders’ lives —your family’s lives, if we can keep it in public ownership. The Preserve Plum Island Coalition, with the input from hundreds of Long Islanders, has painted a vision for the island … so, imagine throwing binoculars, a camera, and a packed lunch enough for you and your family into your backpack and participating in this realized vision by:

— Taking a ferry across to the island, debarking to orient your island adventure by visiting a museum interpreting the cultural and natural riches and fascinating history of the island before you wander, for countless hours, to experience the wild wonders of the island. A most worthwhile stop is the island’s eastern tip where, through a wildlife blind, you enjoy watching dozens of bobbing grey and harbor seals dotting the water amidst the many partially submerged boulders.

— Standing on the edge of the large, tree-edged pond, watching basking turtles and birds and dragonflies flitting over the surface.

-Birdwatching on the wooded trails and bluff tops to view songbirds, shorebirds, ospreys and other birds-of-prey, swallows, sea ducks and so many other species. Perhaps you’ll see a peregrine falcon zipping by during fall migration, sending flocks of shorebirds scurrying away as fast as their streamlined wings can take them.

— Strolling along the island’s eight miles of undisturbed coastline, with the beauty of eastern Long Island before you, offering distant views of Great Gull, Little Gull and Gardiner’s Islands, Montauk Point, and the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastlines.

— Lodging at the Plum Island lighthouse, converted into a Bed & Breakfast and enjoying a glass of wine as the sun sets over Plum Gut and Orient Point.

— Learning about the role Fort Terry played in protecting the United States and the port of New York as your explore the many parts of the fort — the barracks where soldiers stayed, the gun batteries that once housed the cannons angled skyward to repel a foreign attack.

— At the end of day, if you don’t stay over, taking the ferry back to the mainland of the North Fork, tired after many miles of hiking in the salt air of the East End stopping at a North Fork restaurant to share a chat among friends and family about what you’ve learned relating to this fascinating place.

This legislation has given Plum Island (based on the above perhaps we should call it Treasure Island!) a second chance and an opportunity for us to achieve this vision. But this law is only the first step. We need to take the vital second step of new ownership and management in the public interest if all of the above adventures are to become realities. We collectively need to tell those elected officials who represent us, and who can make a difference in determining the island’s fate, that we want Plum Island protected in perpetuity and the opportunity for its many wonders to become interwoven into the fabric of life on Long Island. 

Go to www.preserveplumisland.org to learn more about the Coalition, receive updates, and what you can do to help.

John Turner is the spokesperson for the Preserve Plum Island Coalition.

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Grey Squirrel. Photo from Pixabay

By John L. Turner

While it was more than 50 years ago I remember the details sharply, as if the event had happened a few days ago. The oak I carefully but rapidly climbed was a young tree about 30 feet tall with a full canopy of branches, growing in a small patch of woods between the elementary school I had attended and a residential street (It was in these woods I first saw Pink Lady’s Slipper, a wonderful native orchid). And there in a nook where two branches emerged from the main trunk was the object of my scamper — the nest of a grey squirrel that I wanted to inspect.

My interest in squirrels and their nests came about from a book I had looked at in the junior high school library; I think it was entitled “Animal Homes”— although this factoid I don’t remember quite so clearly! But what I do remember in the book was the account which explained that grey squirrels make two types of nests — those in tree cavities, often used in winter, and the one I was going to inspect consisting of a globe-shaped leafy ball, known as a “drey,” wedged amidst branches, also used in winter but more often during the warmer months. The account mentioned that most dreys consisted of a single chamber although occasionally they make two chambers — the equivalent of a foyer leading into the living room.

Working my way up the tree I reached the destination and with a little bit of anxiety bordering on trepidation stuck my hand into the nest and felt around. Fortunately no one was home, which is what I expected since several bangs on the main trunk next to the drey had elicited no response. I quickly realized I had a two chamber nest.

The entrance chamber was the smaller of the two and I could feel a partial wall separating the two. The back chamber was about 50% bigger than the size of a curled squirrel (say that tens time fast!) I was surprised by how solid the nest felt and how thick the walls were (they can contain more than 20 layers of leaves; one researcher tickled apart the wall of a drey and found 26 leafy layers).

The thick wall of a squirrel nest serves two vital functions — helping to keep rain out and body warmth in and the leafy layered wall exceeds in doing both. The leaves act like shingles on a roof and their overlapping positioning helps to prevent water from infiltrating the nest. Similarly, the leaves help to retain heat and many experiments have documented their thermal benefits, by keeping internal nest temperatures high when occupied by the squirrel. In one study in Finland researchers found that once a red squirrel entered a drey it quickly warmed up, making the temperature inside the nest 60 to 80 degrees warmer than the surrounding air.

The latin or scientific name for the grey squirrel is Sciurus carolinensis; the genus name means “shadow tail,” a reference to the shadow the tail makes when its arched over the back of the squirrel, a common position when the animal is eating. The species name relates to Carolina, where the first squirrel was presumably first discovered and described to science.

Grey squirrels live up to their name, being grey in coloration, but if you get a chance to view a squirrel up close you’ll see the pelage is a bit more colorful. Occasionally while birding I’ll train my binoculars on a nearby squirrel and I am always taken by their subtle beauty, enrobed as they are in muted earth tone colors. The squirrel’s underside is white and it’s face, tail, and armpit is diffused with brown. There’s a flecking of black, white, and brown or tan peppered throughout the grey fur. Melanistic (all black) and albinistic (all white) squirrels occur with melanistic being the more common of the two rare pelages, but even these blacks squirrels make up less than one percent of the population. I remember, as a child,when visiting my aunt who lived in Rye, New York seeing a population of black squirrels that lived in the forest next to a golf course.

When it comes to managing their food supply rodents generally display two types of behaviors: scatter hoarding or centralized or “larder” hoarding, with grey squirrels practicing the former (chipmunks employ the latter). If you watch grey squirrels in the fall you’ll see them carrying acorns and other nuts burying them (or caching them) in dozens of locations. This behavior suggests they possess very good memories, which they indeed do, since 95 to 99% of the cached nuts are recovered and eaten.

I recently watched acorn caching involving a squirrel on my front lawn. The squirrel walked slowly and then stopped to paw the earth, followed by some sniffing, the way a squirrel assesses the suitability of the site in the grass in which to hide the acorn. It did this three or four times apparently unhappy with something about each of the sites until it finally met the right set of squirrelly conditions at a site near a tall holly tree. Scratching quickly with its front paws the squirrel quickly buried the acorn. Its scattered larder was now one acorn larger.

Grey squirrels are quite adept at differentiating acorns from different oak species; they “know” that acorns from white oaks germinate in the fall while those of red oaks do so in the following spring and, not surprisingly, eat the white oak acorns first while storing acorns from red oaks. Another advantage to this strategy, besides eating acorns that would be lost to germination if they tried to store them, comes from the fact that tannin levels in red oak acorns (tannin is the ingredient that makes your lips pucker when drinking red wine) lessens over time, making the acorns less bitter and more palatable.

We’re not sure if squirrel lips pucker when eating tannic acorns but I do know they develop a large stained moustache while and after eating black walnuts. Despite the impending facial smudge they’ll develop, they look like the definition of contentment as they hold the prized walnut in their paws and proceed to gnaw through the green husk to get to the walnut shell and meat that lays within.

We have another squirrel species that roams the forest of Long Island: the Southern Flying Squirrel. Strictly nocturnal, this little living fabric of “flying” carpet can be seen at bird feeding stations where it’s especially fond of suet. Of course, they don’t fly but rather glide from one tree to another, using an extended fold of skin on each side of its body connecting front and back legs. Their flattened tail helps to serve as a rudder and brake.

Many years ago I worked in a nature preserve and one day went to look at some white baneberry growing along a trail I knew was developing fruits (also known as doll’s eyes due to the resemblance of the fruits to the eyes once used in old fashioned porcelain dolls, white baneberry is in the buttercup family). As I neared the plants I noticed, at the base of a large chestnut oak on the other side of the trail, a small brownish object. Inspecting it I realized it was a freshly dead flying squirrel. I sadly wondered if the squirrel had misjudged the location of the tree or got carried by the wind and collided with the tree with such force that it caused its demise.

While I’ll never know what killed that flying squirrel so many years ago, I do know the cause of many squirrel deaths today— roadkill. Grey Squirrels routinely cross roads that are within their territory; unfortunately, they have no awareness of cars as lethal objects. In one study a state wildlife biologist counted 390 dead squirrels along a fifty mile stretch of highway in New Hampshire.

As I drive Long Island roads I’m constantly alert for squirrels bounding out from the road shoulder (and other wildlife like box turtles); so far so good — while I’ve had a number of close calls with darting squirrels I haven’t hit one.

I’m very grateful I haven’t hit a squirrel with my car and even more grateful of the experience I had, climbing an oak tree half a century ago, since it was the catalyst for developing a lifelong fondness of squirrels.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

Photos courtesy of Pixabay

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From left: Suffolk Chamber Alliance Co-chairs Bob Fonti and Gina Coletti, Discover LI President and CEO Kristen Jarnagin, Greater Port Jeff Chamber Executive Director Barbara Ransome, VP of Community Development for People’s United Bank Elizabeth Custodio and artist Kara Hoblin in front of the new artwork in Port Jeff. Photo by Kyle Barr

Business advocates are hoping that local businesses in Port Jefferson can rise above the challenges of the day — on wings if necessary.

A new interactive mural was painted by a North Fork artist over the past week displaying two bird wings in the alleyway between Salsa Salsa and Chris Silver Jewelry. Each wing displays a host of flora, fauna and landmarks of the eastern part of Long Island. Residents and visitors are being encouraged to stand between the two wings to take pictures or selfies underneath the colorful feathers.

Greenport-based artist Kara Hoblin said her piece evolved over the course of painting to represent the multitude of things that make the East End unique. There is everything from monarch butterflies, who make a stop on Long Island during their migration, to the North Fork’s pumpkins in the fall to the everpresent deer. 

The mural is part of Discover Long Island and the Suffolk County Alliance of Chambers’ Shop Small Long Island campaign trying to encourage residents to shop small and shop local this holiday season despite the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Kristen Jarnagin, the president and CEO of Discover Long Island, said they are doing “everything we can to help our small businesses and downtowns.” 

Creating local art that can be utilized by social media campaigns and bring traffic downtowns is just one initiative of several, Jarnagin said. They are also emphasizing residents can use tools such as the Suffolk County Alliance of Chamber’s MyChamber App and Discover Long Island’s Downtown Deals Travel Pass app to allow shoppers to explore businesses within Long Island’s downtowns while also redeeming savings at their favorite shops. Discover LI is also pushing its own Long Island TV that airs every week on where to go and what to see on Long Island.

That message, coming in right before Small Business Saturday Nov. 28, has become especially important now, as the positive rate in Suffolk County rises past 4% in some areas, and all are looking to see if Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) implements any new restrictions or business shutdowns.

Co-Chairs of the Suffolk County Alliance of Chambers Bob Fonti and Gina Coletti said that they see these wings flying and they “want local businesses to soar as well.”

Small businesses have had more than a rough few months since the start of the pandemic. The murals, Fonti said, help make places like Port Jeff a destination. 

“It’s important that we as an alliance of chambers promote our downtowns,” Fonti said. “The financial tsunami, that we don’t know where that’s going to go, we want to drive 10 cars ahead of that, or hopefully ride above that wave.”

The new mural is just one of a host of public art the local chamber and Business Improvement District have been adding to the village over the past several months. Barbara Ransome, the executive director of the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce, said “it’s an added attraction, for sure.”

“It’s visually appealing, and it’s safe,” she said. “Those combinations lend itself to hopefully people coming to see them.”

Ransome also thanked the landowner Dominick Parillo, who not only gave his blessing for the project but had people come in to whitewash the wall in preparation for the mural.

The original mural crafted for the village by Port Jeff artists Linda Menda-Alfin and Jennifer Hannaford was of a fish tank-type scene on an electrical box behind Chase Bank.  

The chamber had requested $1,000 in seed money from the BID back in January for the initial mural projects. Seeing the positive response, the chamber received an additional $2,000 to create even more murals on public infrastructure around the village. 

In addition to the one described before, Ransome said the village will have five electrical boxes featuring artwork. The chamber is planning another mural of a sea turtle and baby sea turtles on the alleyway wall between Chase Bank and Ralph’s Famous Italian Ices.

Another mural sponsored by Discover LI is being crafted for Long Beach in Nassau County, which new art will showcase the sites and other landmarks of western Long Island.

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Deer at Avalon Park. Photo by Mimi Hodges

By John Turner

A White-tailed deer nibbling peacefully on lush green leaves along the roadside, its namesake tail twitching in the twilight of early evening. A screeching, Red-tailed hawk drawing circles around the sun, the bird of prey’s discordant call still being used today to emphasize the most dramatic moments in western movies. Its distant cousin, an Osprey, drops into a rapid stoop, hitting the water with knife-tip sharp talons flared like the legs of a claw lamp, a strategy to enhance capture of slippery fish.

The nightly summer show of incandescence put on by the otherworldly display of fireflies. The seasonal parade of Monarch butterflies feeding on seaside goldenrod at coastal beaches, filling up their migratory fuel tanks on their autumn journey to Mexico. A Grey squirrel sitting on a tree branch in a light rain, feeding on a walnut, adorned with a walnut-stained beard and moustache, its fluffy tail arched over its back and head serving as a most effective umbrella. The dancing flights of Ruby-throated hummingbirds nectaring in wildflower beds, their improbable tubular tongues gaining sustenance through the nectar the plants calculatingly provide.

If you’re like most residents who spends some time outdoors you’ve probably had one or more of the above experiences, or something similar, connecting you to the diversity of wild animals which grace Long Island’s parks, ponds and natural areas. Maybe these experiences have occurred through happenstance or due to your desire to seek them out. Either way, wild animals, what we call “wildlife,” fully living their independent, yet intertwined lives, enrich both ours and theirs and naturally leads to the question: what actions can I take to help wildlife?

Well, the short answer is there are dozens of direct and indirect things each of us can do to protect wildlife both here and further afield. A direct action? Making sure you recycle broken fishing line and not leaving it in or along the edge of a pond where aquatic wildlife, like ducks and swans, and geese, can get entangled and die.

Driving more slowly and looking for box turtles and other animals that might be in harm’s way on the road way. Minimizing bright outdoor lighting which adversely affects nocturnal animals (motion detecting lights are a good compromise between security and the needs of wildlife for darkness).

Indirect actions? Reducing energy and water use, composting the compostable portion of your garbage, recycling the recyclable part, and most importantly, generating less garbage to begin with.

Following are but a few actions for you to consider and there are many, many more, limited only by your imagination. These measures can be placed in two basic categories: things you should do and thing you shouldn’t.

Taking first those activities that you shouldn’t — paramount among them is to avoid the use of pesticides. Despite greenwashing by the chemical industry, it’s important to remember that pesticides are chemical poisons intentionally designed to kill things and they often kill many other insects and other animals besides the ones they’re designed to.

Photo by Tom Caruso

Rampant pesticide use (we use about one billion pounds of insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides annually; yes, billion, that’s not a typo) is the leading cause for the decline of scores of important pollinating insects including native bees, flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, and the European honey bee.

Many non-target mammals, birds, fish, and numerous reptiles and amphibians are harmed or killed by pesticide use too (many box turtles exposed to pesticides appear to develop painful abscesses in their middle ear cavity which can be life threatening). There is much on-line information about less destructive ways to control undesirable insects, weeds, etc., than through using poisons.

Another “don’t” action involves your cat. Cats, both feral and free roaming pets, are the leading cause for small mammals and bird deaths and their decline. Billions of mice, voles, and hundreds of millions of songbirds, involving dozen of species, are killed by cats annually in the United States. And collar bells on cats make no difference as birds don’t associate bells with danger.

Most people don’t open the front door to let their dog out, freeing it to roam the neighborhood, but don’t think twice about letting the cat out where it can and does wreak ecological havoc. While it is difficult to make a pet cat used to going outside exclusively into an indoor cat, there are transitioning strategies you can employ available on-line for review. And make your next pet cat an indoor one!!

Now for the do’s — do make your yard friendly for wildlife! Make it a cafeteria and shelter! This effort should start by planting or expanding the use of native plant species which are life sustaining for hundreds of insects which form the base of local food chains.

Doug Tallamy, in his wonderful new book ,“Nature’s Best Hope,” states that a White oak tree can sustain several hundred different species of insects — insects, both in adult and larval forms (caterpillars) that birds like Black-capped chickadees and Downy woodpeckers need to survive.

Another great native plant — a shrub — is Common elderberry (yes, THAT plant whose berries are made into wine). The small white flowers provide nectar to a variety of small pollinating insects and the red-purple berries, often produced in copious amounts, are eaten by a number of songbirds. Compare these species to non-native exotic plants, say a Winged Euonymus or Arborvitae, typically planted by homeowners and landscapers. These plants are ecological deserts never becoming part of the local food chain since no or few insects feed upon, insects which sustain so many other living things.

Add sterile lawns and we’ve created landscapes around our home that provides little in the way that wildlife needs. In contrast, planting native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees is a highly effective strategy for hosts of animals that feed on the bounty that native plants provide in the form of nectar, seeds, fruits, and nuts.

And leaving leaf cover in your flower beds and other out of the way places during the autumn cleanup provides shelter from the winter’s cold for a variety of overwintering caterpillars and other insects.

Placing decals on your home’s windows is another measure you can take around your house to meaningfully help birds. Nearly a billion birds in North America are estimated to die annually from flying into building windows they don’t see, due to either of the two deadly characteristics windows possess — transparency and reflectivity. Hummingbirds are especially common collision victims. There are several type of attractive decal products available for purchase on-line which, when installed, help enable birds to see windows for what they are.

By now you may have had the thought — John, you’ve discussed these other ways to help wildlife but what about perhaps the most obvious way: by feeding birds. In truth, that’s a common and pervasive misperception as feeding birds does nothing to help them survive since no wild bird species depends upon backyard bird feeding stations to continue to exist.

Wild birds are quite adept at finding enough wild food for themselves even during the winter and for their young during the breeding season to survive. They don’t need or depend on the seed, suet, sugar water, jelly, and oranges many homeowners put out to entice them. And the species that frequent backyard feeders — Black-capped chickadees, Tufted titmice, Common grackles, Carolina wrens, and a variety of woodpeckers — are common suburban birds whose populations are doing well. The species whose populations are declining and are in trouble — many migratory warblers, vireos, swallows, swifts, nighthawks, thrushes, and flycatchers — rarely, if ever, frequent feeders.

So, if you’re feeding birds because you enjoy watching them up close that makes sense (a point hard to argue given their beauty and fascinating behaviors!), but if you’re feeding them because you think individual birds and species of birds need your help, it would be better to spend the bird feed money by writing a check to a bird conservation advocacy organization like the National Audubon Society (the local chapter is the Four Harbors Audubon Society) or the American Bird Conservancy.

The 2020-2021 Federal Duck Stamp features a pair of black-bellied whistling-ducks painted by Alabama artist Eddy LeRoy.

Even better, you should take some of the money you’ve saved and buy a federal Duck Stamp, one of the best kept secrets in conservation. More than five million acres of wildlife habitat have been permanently protected, purchased through the use of Duck Stamp funds, including much of the National Wildlife Refuge system (we have some wonderful refuges on Long Island you can explore like Wertheim and Elizabeth Morton).

Simply stated, animals need habitat to survive. Like us, they need water, food and shelter and the Duck Stamp program has provided a way to protect huge expanses of habitat. Buying land that contains valuable wildlife habitat can help bird species survive. Duck stamps are available for purchase at a place which has been much in the news lately: your local Post Office.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

*This article first appeared in Harvest Times 2020, a supplement of TBR News Media

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