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Nature Matters

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A Fish Crow. Photo from Wikimedia

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Walking out of the returnable bottle vestibule at the local supermarket, I looked up to see a swirl of black forms, circling and swooping over the parking lot. I quickly counted eighteen crows and wondered what they were doing and what species was involved? A dozen landed on the building parapet, sitting in even spaced intervals about three feet apart and began vocalizing — I got the answer to the second question as their deeply nasal caw gave them away — I was watching a flock of Fish Crows, or as a flock of crows is also called “A Murder of Crows,” right here in a suburban parking lot.    

Fish Crows, which breed here, are a member of the Corvid family (or Corvidae) which has three other representatives of this fascinating bird family on Long Island — Blue Jay, American Crow and the Common Raven, a relative newcomer to the island’s avifauna. (The Raven is also the largest songbird in the world, an interesting factoid you can impress people with at cocktail parties). There are twenty-three corvid species in North America  with other representatives of the family including magpies,  nutcrackers, and scrub jays.   

A blue jay. Pixabay photo

As for the answer to the first question about their collective behavior, each and every bird was doing something important since such rapid communication was taking place between crows. The perched birds called repeatedly, almost incessantly, projecting their head forward to emphasize the call, so much so I thought they might tumble from the building edge! A few more joined the scene flying north from the nearby home improvement store and they proceeded to land on the parking light poles of the supermarket, cawing as they flew in.       

I watched for at least ten minutes as they called back and forth and I felt simultaneously amused and frustrated in not being able to enter their world and understand what the fuss was all about.  The spring mating season would soon be here with the birds pairing up to raise the next generation of fish crows. Was this the crow equivalent of a farewell party? Whatever the reason, it was a pleasure to watch a group of animals socializing in such an animated way. It brought a smile to my face. 

Another supermarket customer came out and once he passed the entrance overhang looked up, presumably drawn by my upward gaze and the raucous calling. He formed his arms as if he were firing a rifle and raised them in the direction of the birds. My smile immediately disappeared as his attitude and intent was clear. I said something to him that I cannot repeat in this family newspaper and his reaction, so immediate and spontaneous as to reveal his true attitude, darkened my mood for much of the day.  

In fact, his attitude of hostility toward crows is an all too common one. Based on New York State hunting regulations, promulgated by the Department of Environmental Conservation, you can kill as many crows as you want, each and every day, during a six month hunting season running from September 1st to March 31st. All this despite the fact that virtually no one hunts crows to eat them — they are shot for “sport.” The state agency, created to “conserve the environment,” one that you support with hard earned tax dollars, is in support of suffering and a wanton waste of life.  

While some have a negative view of crows,  a more positive view is developing, fostered by a recognition they are remarkably smart birds, a fact borne out by experiment and observation. 

The results of a recently published trial relating to “geometric regularity” bears this out. In this study, researchers rewarded crows if they correctly identified a shape which is different from a group of other displayed shapes — like four stars and a crescent. If a crow pecked at the crescent it would be given a treat, a delicious mealworm! The crows’ abilities were tested when it came to shapes that were different but in more subtle ways such as a square and another quadrilateral figure with which the angles and lines varied little. The subtlety  didn’t matter as the birds pecked the correct symbol and got the mealworm. 

We know from ample experiments and observations that crows are one of the few bird groups that use tools. In one famous set of experiments, crows had to know to drop rocks into a tube of water to raise the water level enough to reach a floating treat. They did this well and when confronted with two tubes, one containing water and the other sand, knew not to bother with the sand filled tube.  

In another experiment crows knew to insert one tube into another to gain enough length to reach food. The use of compound tools, as displayed by crows, has only been seen in Great Apes. 

To round out the intelligent capabilities of crows, they are known to recognize and distinguish human faces, being able to remember them for many years. What’s the reason for such intellectual prowess? Well, part of it has to do with the fact that corvids have large brains in comparison to their bodies. But the main reason has to do with the high density of neurons corvid brains possess and the overall complicated structure of the corvid brain. 

This time of year crows and other corvids have paired up to breed and raise a new generation. They will stay paired for the next couple of months but as summer wanes and the cooler weather arrives you’ll notice a change in their behavior. The pair bonds dissolve and the crows, ever gregarious and social, will spend the winter in flocks which can number in the hundreds, during which time individual crows observe the behavior of other crows learning:  What do they eat? In what direction and how far do they fly from their overnight winter roost to find feed? How do they detect and avoid predators?  This social aspect of crows also helps to explain their overall adaptability and intelligence, traits that if my fellow shopper knew, might result in him replacing his knee jerk aggressive gesture with a sense of admiration. 

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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A mourning cloak butterfly. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Strolling up a slight incline on a trail pockmarked with pebbles the oak forest fell steeply away to my right. The warm spring air on this day in late April was most pleasant and welcome and I paused for a moment to bask in the warmth of a circle of sunlight reaching the ground through a small break in the tree canopy, happy winter was in the rear view mirror. 

Numerous Flowering Dogwood trees were in blossom in the forest, adding a splash of white and pink to the understory, their flowers reminding me of a grouping of water lilies floating fifteen feet in the air, although they were at eye level because of the falling slope. 

And suddenly movement — a butterfly is sailing toward me down the trail, turns in a half circle and lands in a foot square patch of sunlight with wings open, facing away so that its dark wings have the best angle to absorb the warmth the shaft of sunlight offered. A mourning cloak, a butterfly with a three inch wingspan, has joined my morning, an identification I make easily and instantly due to its highly distinctive coloration, which is unlike any other butterfly in eastern North America. 

The mourning cloak, so named because its dark brown body with a pale yellow band along the outer wing margin is reminiscent of the attire once worn during funerals and other somber occasions, is a stunningly beautiful insect. 

The derivation of the scientific name is a different story; Nymphalis antiopa relates to arcane Greek mythology. The brown of the body and wings is rich walnut in color and toward the wing edge numerous purplish-blue oval dots are patterned within a narrow band of black, this band adjacent to the aforementioned yellow band at the wing margin. Dark flecking is sprinkled throughout the yellow. Four small yellow wedges are positioned along the leading edge of the wings. Two prominent dark colored antennae project from the butterfly’s head, forming a classic letter vee.

The underside of the wings are as drab as the upper wings are showy. This adaptation helps the mourning cloak blend in on tree bark or leaf litter if it falls to the ground and plays dead, as it sometimes does to avoid predation. If it decides instead to flee it can erupt fast, emitting an unusual clicking sound (which I’ve never heard) which reportedly disturbs birds.  

The mourning cloak is typically the first butterfly to emerge in the spring because it overwinters as an adult; no need for springtime pupation and metamorphosis as with other butterflies. Adults spend the winter in surprising fashion — hibernating beneath flaking tree bark, in tree cavities and in the cracks of larger rocks. They are able to survive the winter because they have “antifreeze” in their blood and cells — sugar compounds (glycerols) which lower the temperature at which the insect would freeze. Once it emerges it rapidly shivers its flight muscles helping the butterfly to warm up. Its dense hairlike bristles help to hold the muscle-generated heat inside.  

Another surprise in a butterfly with several surprises is that, once it emerges, it doesn’t depend upon, or much utilize flowers and their sugary nectar, although the species will occasionally visit them. Rather, they depend upon tree sap, the moisture and sugar in fallen fruits, the sweet exudate of aphids, mud puddles, even animal dung. Due to the fact this butterfly came out of pupation last summer means it is — as far as insects go — a long lived insect, having a lifespan as much as ten to twelve months. 

Not surprising, given its ability to survive frigid temperatures, the mourning cloak is found in temperate and cold regions all across North America, Europe and Asia. In England it’s known as the ‘Camberwell Beauty’; the species was first discovered in England at Camberwell in 1748 and the discoverer, Moses Harris, suggested the name. It also ranges south and is known from Central and South America.   

If the mourning cloak mates, egg laying takes place with the eggs laid on one of a wide range of host plants including  various willows, aspen, birch, hackberry, elm, hawthorn, cottonwood, poplar and mulberry, among others. The eggs are laid in long clusters along the stem near its tip and they are as beautiful as they are geometrically distinctive; they remind me a little of the dome of the U.S. Capitol. I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading here and “Google image” the eggs. It’s worth the effort. 

At first, when small, the caterpillars stay together but after going through growth stages known as instars they separate. A mature caterpillar is black with eight orange dots and is heavily spined which, if touched, can irritate the skin. The pupa, the case in which the miracle of metamorphosis occurs, is also spined. On Long Island the butterflies emerge in early to mid-summer and will, if the weather grows hot, aestivate (kind of like hibernation in the summer). Another emergence can occur in the fall.  

As with so many elements of the natural world, butterflies unfortunately are declining in abundance and mourning cloaks are no exception. In a recently published study  measuring population trends of North American butterfly species, the mourning cloak has declined by about 22% over the past quarter century. This alarming decline appears due to a combination of continued widespread pesticide use, climate change, and habitat loss. 

How can you help this iconic harbinger of spring? By foregoing the use of pesticides, leaving on your property standing dead and dying trees with their sheltered protective cavities and sloughing bark, and supporting organizations devoted to butterfly conservation such as the Xerces Society.  

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
An Eastern tiger salamander, a NY State Endangered Species. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
A female marbled salamander, a vernal pool species, guarding her egg clutch. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner

By John L. Turner

John Turner

They are quite easy to overlook. Most are small, some really small, the size of your living room. Or maybe no bigger than the size of the first floor of your house. They are typically dry by the time summer’s heat reaches full blast so if you’re not trained to look at a shallow depression of water stained leaves you may not know what you’re looking at — a dynamic ecosystem that when filled with water sustains scores of species. 

These habitats, just dimples in the landscape, are known as vernal pools, or as a key researcher from the Massachusetts-based Vernal Pool Association likes to call them, “wicked little puddles.” They are fascinating small-scale ecosystems filled with wonder and discovery. 

Vernal pools gain their name because generally they have their highest water levels in the spring, around the vernal equinox, due to the combination of seasonal rains and snow melt. Amphibians are the stars of the vernal pool show, taking advantage of these fishless environments allowing them to  breed successfully. Three of the more common Long Island amphibians utilizing these pools are Wood Frogs, Spring Peepers, and Spotted Salamanders.  

Beginning in the middle of March, unless it’s a harsh winter, these species emerge from their upland overwintering sites (under logs, in rodent holes, etc.) and migrate to the ponds to make the next generation. Visiting a pool on a spring night it is not unusual to hear the deafening peeps of the Peepers (living up to their name) and the vocalizations of wood frogs (a cross between the quack of a duck and the barking of a dog). 

Shine a flashlight on the water and you might see the tail swish of a beautiful yellow-dotted Spotted Salamander moving through the leaves lining the pond’s bottom. Or perhaps it will be cork-like creatures in the form of mating pairs of wood frogs  in amplexus — she releases dozens to more than a hundred eggs into the water quickly followed by the clasping male releasing a cloud of sperm. Soon, the gelatinous egg mass swells with water, forming fist size clusters, anchored to submerged stems and over the next couple of weeks the embryos develop, eventually hatching into tadpoles. 

Spotted Salamander egg masses look similar but in their case fertilization is internal with the female taking up sperm capsules (called spermatophores) which the male salamanders have deposited on the pool bottom. Spring peepers, a species of treefrog, don’t lay egg clusters like these other two species but rather deposit individual eggs. 

 Other amphibians known to use Long Island vernal pools include cousins to the Spotted Salamander: Marbled, Blue-spotted and Eastern Tiger Salamanders (a New York State endangered species), Red-spotted Newts, Fowler’s and Eastern Spadefoot Toads, Grey Treefrogs, and to a lesser extent American Bullfrogs, and Pickerel and Green Frogs.

Many other forms of life thrive in these “wicked little puddles.” One fascinating species are fairy shrimp, small krill-like crustaceans that swim about the water column “upside down” with females carrying egg clusters in their tail appendage. We have two species on Long Island, both of which are quite adept at surviving prolonged dry periods even when vernal pools remain dry for several consecutive years, such as during a drought. 

How does a fairy shrimp survive prolonged dry periods?  Their eggs are cyst like and can tolerate complete desiccation, extreme cold, harsh UV exposure, and other extreme environmental conditions and come out of it no worse for the wear  — they are the definition of tough!  The eggs are even known to travel through the digestive system of ducks (several species of waterfowl routinely feed on fairy shrimp), unscathed by the bird’s digestive acids and it is thought this pathway explains how shrimp colonize new pools. 

Many other types of invertebrates frequent vernal pools including quite a few types of water bugs and beetles, midges, mites, and mosquitoes, dragonflies and damselflies, worms, snails and clams, copepods, all tied together with amphibians and other vertebrates in a complex food web of  “eat and be eaten”.  

For many vernal pool inhabitants, including amphibians, there is a clock always ticking, as animals speed to complete stages of their life cycle before the pools dry up, certain death for tadpoles that have not yet completed metamorphosis. Some eggs hatch as quickly as a couple of days and tadpoles can undergo the miracle of metamorphosis in a few weeks. Some grow more rapidly by dining on the aforementioned fairy shrimp which is a plentiful source of protein in the pool.     

For these vernal pool frequenting amphibians to survive, it is not enough to protect just the pool and pool basin.  Wood Frogs, Spotted Salamanders and many other amphibians migrate from the pools once breeding is done to spend the rest of the year in adjacent upland habitats around the pools. “Around” is a relative term as it may involve distances of several hundred feet since some individuals travel far (a few individuals such as Tiger Salamanders and Wood Frogs have been documented moving more than a thousand feet from the pool). Thus, protecting upland habitats around vernal pools is vital. Protecting upland areas between pools is ideal!

In 2022 a coalition of environmental groups worked with the NYSDEC and the Governor’s office to amend the NYS Freshwater Wetlands Act, strengthening it in many ways including providing greater protection for vernal pools. This effort paid off as vernal pools are included as one of eleven new categories of “‘wetlands of unusual importance” which provides them protection. Good thing as countless of these tiny to small, but amphibian-essential, pools, which are sometimes dry, have been destroyed, having been filled in and leveled for development.  

 Through funding from the Long Island Community Foundation (as it was known at the time; now it’s the New York Community Trust), the Seatuck Environmental Association undertook, with many other individuals and organizations through the framework of  “Vernal Pool Working Group,” an island-wide effort to locate and characterize all of the vernal pools situated on Long Island. 

Now completed, this project has identified about  350 pools from Queens to the west and the Montauk peninsula to the east.  A second phase of the project included the publication of a Landowner’s Guide to Vernal Pool Management providing recommendations for public and private property owners to better manage and protect their vernal pools and the species that utilize them.

One recommendation is to leave branches in the pond that have fallen in as they often are used by salamanders and frogs for sites to anchor their egg masses. Another is if your house has a  basement with window wells to put covers over the wells to prevent amphibians from falling in. Several years ago I rescued a tiger salamander from a house in Ridge that had fallen into just such a well, where it ultimately would have perished if left alone. 

Vernal pools are fascinating places to explore — little microcosms of ecosystems.  They are truly “wicked little puddles,”  beautiful and fascinating places in which to connect and explore the natural world that surrounds us all. I hope you find time to visit one.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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Barn Owl. Pixabay photo

By John L. Turner

John Turner

I stepped out the back door into the clear and bracing evening air, under the inky black dome of the night sky pockmarked with the stars in the constellation of Orion and the luminous planetary dot of Venus to the southeast. Within a few seconds I hear a call: several deep hoots of a Great Horned Owl, repeated three more times in quick succession. It’s a sequence that one ornithologist characterizes as: “Who’s awake, me too!” While I couldn’t see it, I suspected the bird was hooting from a large white pine on the south side of the neighbor’s yard and its presence filled me with excitement as it always does when hearing or seeing an owl.   

Several species of owls, varying in abundance, seasonality, and habitat, can be found on Long Island; some  nest while a few don’t breed on Long Island but overwinter, while still others migrate through the island. In addition to the Great Horned Owl, they include the Screech Owl, the winter visiting Snowy and Short-eared Owls, and the uncommon Long-eared and Saw-whet Owls. Frequenting barns and other structures is the strikingly beautiful Barn Owl. A very rare winter visitor, having visited just a few times in the past century, is the stunning Great Grey Owl, associated with more northerly latitudes. Currently, ornithologists have documented 254 owl species globally. 

Snowy Owl. Pixabay photo

Perhaps the most coveted owl to lay your eyes on is the Snowy Owl, which possesses a  snowy white plumage in adult male birds. Adult females and immature birds of both sexes have black flaking. This species is an open country bird, preferring the windswept habitats of its breeding range — open dunes and heathland and, unlike most owl species, is active during the day.

The south shore barrier islands, including Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Parks, can be fruitful areas to look for this diurnal species. As for a search image, think a white paper bag situated atop a dune crest. Driving the stretch of Dune Road from Shinnecock Inlet west to Cupsogue County Park is also worthwhile.

Snowy Owls appear almost every winter in a still not fully understood response to prey abundance in the Arctic. It used to be thought the movement of the species southward was tightly correlated with a decrease in abundance of their prey, lemmings. The phenomenon is not that clear cut and scientists aren’t fully sure what drives their long and stressful southbound journeys. 

Short-eared Owl. Pixabay photo

The Short-eared Owl is another species associated with open country that’s active during the day.  Short-eared have an infinity for grasslands, meadows, and marshes. This species was once an uncommon breeding bird; it is now quite rare, if it still breeds here at all. The best bet to see this handsome species is as an overwintering bird probably at the former Grumman property in Calverton. The grassy margins of the formerly used runways support small mammals like mice and voles which the owl feeds on. Short-eared can also be occasionally viewed perched on telephone poles along Dune Road. 

Long-eared Owl. Pixabay photo

The closely related Long-eared Owl is uncommon on Long Island and if it breeds here at all it is in very low numbers. It is seen most often as an overwintering bird, typically perched in conifers or evergreens. One of my fonder memories involving this group of birds was seeing, many decades ago, several Long-eareds perched together in evergreen shrubs first found by fellow birders and friends Bob McGrath and Rich Gostic, on an estate property on the east side of the Nissequogue River. Based on the pellets and white wash it was clear the roost had been used for some time.  Unfortunately, the estate was developed in the 1980’s and the owl patch destroyed.

Barn Owl. Pixabay photo

In my youth I worked at the 133-acre Hoyt Farm Preserve in Commack. For many years a pair of Barn Owls nested in the old wooden tower that once provided water for the farm. A highlight for me and other staff was to periodically climb the metal rungs of the ladder to gain entry into the tower and band the young owls. During the banding process they would hiss loudly along with their parents, comically rocking their heads back and forth. Unfortunately, as the land around the preserve was developed, there apparently wasn’t enough habitat to sustain an ample prey base needed to sustain the pair of barn owls and their young, as they haven’t nested at the preserve in many decades. 

Northern Saw-Whet Owl. Pixabay photo

The Northern Saw-whet Owl is perhaps the least known of our native owl species. It is also the smallest, topping out at about eight inches from top of head to tail tip and tipping the scales at less than three ounces. (In contrast, the aforementioned Snowy Owl weighs about four pounds). The Saw-whet’s name derives from the fact its call sounds a bit like the sound made when whetting or sharpening a saw. This diminutive bird has a preference for tangles — vines and tightly growing pine branches — where it hides during the day. It has been recorded as breeding on Long Island although it is seen much more often during fall migration and as an overwintering bird. Want to see the definition of cuteness? Take a look at a photograph of a fledgling Saw-whet. Oh my!    

Both the Great Horned Owl and its diminutive cousin the Screech Owl are woodland birds. Both species have ‘horns’ which are really vertical feather tufts, as does the aforementioned Long-eared; they play no role in defense or hearing. 

Great Horned Owl. Pixabay photo

The Great Horned Owl is the earliest nesting bird and at the time this article appears adults will be incubating eggs, providing them with life-giving heat. Several years ago I was checking out a wooded Town of Brookhaven preserve in Holbrook when I saw what I thought was a white plastic bag partially hidden behind an oak tree. Coming around the tree I was startled to see not a bag but a wet Great Horned owl fledgling sitting amidst the damp leaves. I knew if there was one fledgling there were likely more and after some searching I found two other fledglings, one of which, perched on a fallen pine tree, was already growing into its adult plumage. An adult perched in a live upright pine tree nearby kept a steady eye on both me and her precocious babies. 

The Screech Owl is probably the most common and widespread owl species found here with breeding pairs likely inhabiting most  woodlots five to ten acres or larger. Like the Saw-whet, Screech Owls are cavity nesters, using holes excavated in trees by woodpeckers. Unlike almost all of the other eighteen North American owl species, the Screech owl is polymorphic, a fancy term meaning the species  has three color morphs or forms — a grey plumage form, a rufous colored one and a form intermediate (which I have never seen). Of the several dozen screech owls I’ve had the pleasure of seeing on Long Island, I’ve only seen the rufous morph although I’ve seen the grey form a few times in other places. 

Carl Safina with Alfie

The most well-known Screech Owl on Long Island undoubtedly is Alfie, made famous through Carl Safina’s wonderful book Alfie & Me, in which, in part, he describes the trials and tribulations of nursing a very sick Screech Owl fledgling back to health, assisting with her successful re-wilding, and watching her blossom into a devoted parent, raising, to date, 15 young in the woodlands in and adjacent to his Setauket residence. 

Screech owls are misnamed — rather, the ‘screech’ title belongs to the Barn Owl, which emits a haunting sounding hiss or screech when agitated or disturbed. Screech owl vocalizations, which I occasionally hear in my backyard and on the hikes around Long Island, aren’t screechy at all; indeed they are rather pleasant sounding — a two parted horse like whinny followed by a pulsing whistle. I encourage you to listen to a recording of its call. 

Barred Owl. Pixabay photo

A puzzle regarding the presence of owl species on Long Island is the dearth of Barred Owls. This species, well-known for its distinctive “Who-cooks-for-you?, Who-cooks-for-you-all?” call is very rarely heard or seen here. This is a bit surprising since the species is fairly common in areas north and west of the island such as southern Connecticut and northern and central New Jersey. Its scarcity might be due to the fact that it prefers large, extensive tracts of forested wetlands such as tupelo-red maple swamps and these areas on Long Island are rarely more than a couple dozen acres in size at most.    

Owls are well adapted to being “denizens of the dark.” They possess exceptional vision and hearing and have feathers that dampen or eliminate sound as they fly. Owls see quite well in the dark, an obvious necessity for a nocturnal lifestyle.

One reason is the size of their eyes. Great-horned Owls have large barrel-shaped eyes they cannot move, so to change its field of view an owl must turn its head. Another reason is due to the abundance of rod cells in their eyes which help them to detect light; they have about 50% more rods than we do. Lastly, owls have forward facing eyes enabling binocular vision, like us, which helps with depth perception, a key attribute when hunting prey that is small, mobile and fast. Their forward facing eyes is what imparts the ‘wise’ look unique to owls. 

Their hearing is remarkably acute as well due to the fact their ear openings are asymmetrically positioned on each side of the owl’s head. This allows for an owl to not only detect if a mouse is rustling to its left or right (the vertical plane) but whether it’s on the ground or in a bush a few feet off the ground (the horizontal plane). Experiments with Barn owls in totally dark situations proved this species can successfully capture prey using hearing alone.

Blakiston Fish Owl. Pixabay photo

The leading edge of an owl’s flight feathers is “fluted” which creates a soft edge that muffles sound, rather than a hard or straight edge like in a duck or seagull. This feature enables silent flight, a great advantage to a bird, gifting it the element of surprise. Interestingly, owl species like the Blakiston’s Fish Owl, the largest owl in the world, that feed on species that cannot detect the sound of an owl, like fish, lack the fluted edge. No need to evolve silent flight when your prey can’t hear you to begin with.

A good way to acquaint yourself with this remarkable and charismatic group of birds is to join a local Audubon chapter or Sweetbriar Nature Center on an organized nocturnal “owl prowl” or venture out to the Calverton Grasslands or Jones Beach to see one of the species active during the day. If you do and are lucky enough to hear or see an owl I bet you’ll be filled with excitement too!

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

 

 

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Pexels photo

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Strolling on a mid-December day to pick up the morning paper at the base of the driveway, I passed by the bird bath and noticed the surface had a thin layer of ice capping a few inches of water underneath, an event about as surprising as the fact gravity held me to the ground as I fetched to get the newspaper. 

Except that a thought I had not had for a very long time suddenly flashed to mind, from something I read in a middle school Earth Science textbook, a thought about a concept that is remarkably consequential — if ice wasn’t lighter than water but rather denser, life might not have ever gotten a foothold on planet Earth or if it did, it might have happened later and in a much more limited fashion geographically speaking.   

As water cools it becomes denser so water closer to a freezing temperature, say 40 degrees Fahrenheit, is denser than at 80 degree water and 80 degree water is denser than water near its boiling point. The fact the colder water is, the denser it is, is true — but only to a point. Once water falls below 39.4 degrees Fahrenheit it reverses course density wise and becomes less dense as water molecules shift to form a lattice-like structure of spread out interconnected hexagons (six sided) once the water freezes; this lower density explains why ice is always on the surface and why ice cubes and icebergs float.    

If water lacked this chemical quirkiness (in one scientific account characterized as ‘anomalous physical behavior’) and ice was denser than water, when ice formed at the surface from contact with air below 32 degrees, it would sink to the bottom, soon freezing solid the entire water column from bottom to top and everything in between if it stayed cold long enough. 

All turtles, frogs, salamanders, and fish would be frozen along with the much smaller zooplankton that forms the base of the aquatic food chain located in temperate climates. Aquatic mammals such as beavers, muskrats, and otters would struggle mightily to survive. The same would be true for bays, harbors and the shallow portions of oceans, creating profound difficulties for the animals living in the colder portions of the marine realm. 

If ice was denser than water would life ever have evolved on Earth? If so, would it be in the countless forms we see today? Would there have been other evolutionary pathways than the traditionally understood fish to amphibian to reptile to bird and mammal route we have deciphered from genetic evidence and the fossil record? Would you or I  even exist to read and write this article, respectively? 

Fortunately, our world is one in which water behaves oddly, with ice always floating on water, forming a protective layer for the free swimming aquatic life beneath. No matter how cold and bone-chilling the temperature of the air, even in circumstances involving temperatures much below zero (as routinely happens in mountainous areas and the polar regions), the water beneath the ice remains a ‘balmy’ 33 degrees or slightly higher, allowing for life to persist. 

And ice isn’t the only form of frozen water that protects life. Snow does the same.  One foot of snow is enough to keep the soil near 32 degrees despite what the air temperature is above the snow. This insulative value is not surprising given the fact that about 90% of the volume of a freshly fallen blanket of snow is air! 

This allows for small mammals like voles and mice to remain active through the winter, hidden from predators beneath the snow, although a life free from predation is never a guarantee; a fact borne out on a few occasions when I’ve seen both red fox and coyote spring high into the air, arching their backs to gain momentum and focus, coming hard down on the snow with their front paws to punch through the crusty surface layer of snow in pursuit of a vole or mouse it heard below. 

I well remember watching a coyote in a wind-blown, snow-covered farm field in Ontario, north of Ottawa, about thirty winters ago repeatedly pouncing through the snow, eventually catching what looked like to be a meadow vole. 

Snow also enables animals hibernating beneath (called the subnivean zone) to use less energy and worry less about frostbite during this vulnerable time. Snow also protects plants from “frostbite” by preventing the soil from freezing and damaging small roots and rootlets. That’s why snow is referred to as the “poor man’s mulch”! The snow prevents a freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw  cycle which can  push or heave a plant from the soil causing root damage.

And a snow cover benefits human animals and their properties too, by safeguarding underground water lines from freezing since slightly below the snow-covered surface the temperature remains above the freezing point. This might not be true if very cold air can make prolonged contact against a ground that lacks the benefit of a snow blanket.     

Under certain conditions though, snow and ice can prove lethal to plants and animals. The weight of wet snow can break branches and occasionally break or topple trees, especially evergreens whose abundant needled leaves hold snow. Ice forming inside plant and animal cells can be lethal as microscopically small ice shards puncture cell walls. 

The wood frog, a native amphibian that breeds in vernal pools throughout Long Island (vernal pools will be the subject of a Nature Matters column in the Spring of 2025) actually freezes solid in the winter and is able to survive by pumping water out of its cells so they stay protected.  No wonder they are amusingly called ‘frogcicles’! 

If you want to see a wood frog thawing out after a long winter of being frozen but somehow still staying alive, I invite you to look at YouTube videos. 

So there you have it — ice and snow — two substances which can disrupt life in specific situations but lifegiving in a general sense. And since we’re still in the glow of the holiday season, let’s be forever thankful for the unique, life-permitting nature of water molecules. 

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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Above, what Blydenburgh County Park could look like if the dam isn't put back ... this is West Brook in Bayard Cutting Arboretum several years after the dam failed and a beautiful stream valley with great biodiversity has emerged. Photo from John Turner

By John L. Turner

Due to the extensive development of Long Island, starting with European colonization nearly 400 years ago, virtually no species, natural area, or landscape has been untouched. Some of these “touches” have been minor, others moderate, while still others have been drastic or complete, like the virtual destruction of the Hempstead Plains, a once 40,000 square mile tallgrass prairie located in the middle of Nassau County. True too, for the timber wolf which was eradicated early in the Island’s settlement driven by a bounty paid during the 17th century for each dead wolf. 

There are few places where these impacts have been more extensive than with the more than 100 streams and rivers flowing outward from the center of Long Island to the salty waters that surround it. For centuries these streams were viewed as only having commercial value; modified by dams the streams became artificial ponds to supply water for cranberry bogs and for the harvest of ice. 

Mills were constructed in many places, taking advantage of the water funneled over constructed dams, to grind corn, saw wood or for fulling clothing fiber. Today, there are very few unobstructed streams on Long Island. (One of the few is Alewife Creek in Southampton which drains Big Fresh Pond, emptying into North Sea Harbor).  

The ‘brook’ in Stony Brook. Photo from John Turner

Obstruction is the reality at “Cutsgunsuck,” the Setalcott Indigenous Nation’s name for a “brook laden with stones,” a brook that we know today as Stony Brook. This “stone laden” brook, fed by freshwater oozing out of the Upper Glacial aquifer on its northward flow to the harbor, was drastically altered about 275 years ago, with the construction of the dam to funnel water for the Stony Brook Grist Mill so only a limited section of the original brook remains. Predictably, as with all dams, the water backed up behind the newly constructed dam, creating a pond in the process and drowning much of the stream and streamside environment — and its interwoven array of plants and animals  — that had evolved in place over many thousands of years. Same was the case with the dam in Blydenburgh County Park creating Stump Pond. 

Victims of these dams were the migratory fish, American Eel and Alewife, a species of river herring, that undoubtedly used Stony Brook and the upper reaches of the Nissequogue River centuries ago to spawn and develop. These fish, known as diadromous species,  live in two worlds — in the case of American eels spawning in the ocean (the Sargasso Sea), migrating inland to freshwater streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds to spend more than a decade growing and maturing before returning to the ocean. Alewife behave in the opposite fashion — coming inland to spawn with the adults and young leaving to develop in the ocean. 

Eels and river herring are important components of the coastal food chain, nourishing cormorants, wading birds, eagles, and ospreys while back in the sea, a host of predatory fish such as striped bass, bluefish, and tuna. Mammals that prey on these species include river otters, making a slow comeback on Long Island, and seals. The dams created insurmountable obstacles to the completion of their life cycle so for these fish and the other species that feed upon them two ecological threads were severed. 

The Northern Dusky Salamander found in the Stony Brook Mill Pond. Photo from John Turner

Other animals that prosper in cold and clear streams lost out too, seeing their habitat lost or substantially diminished.  Remarkably, one of them is a species hanging on in the truncated stream segment south of the now drained portion of the Stony Brook Mill Pond — the Northern Dusky Salamander, an amphibian discovered by someone helping wildlife in the pond after the dam failure; a species which has not been seen on Long Island in nearly a century and was presumed extirpated here!

The northern dusky is one of nine native salamander species that call Long Island home and some naturalists wonder if this population constitutes a new species since it’s been reproductively isolated from other populations of the species, the nearest being in Westchester county, for some 12,000 to 15,000 years.  DNA work is proposed to sort the genetics out.  

The same adverse ecological impacts occurred when the dam was constructed to operate a grist mill at Stump Pond within Blydenburgh County Park in Hauppauge (which had its dam blow out due to the same storm event in August) but on an even larger scale. The two streams feeding Stump Pond, that is two headwater sections of the Nissequogue River, one beginning in the Hauppauge Springs area near the Suffolk County Center on State Route 454, the other emanating further afield in the Village of the Branch, disappeared with the construction of the dam that created Stump Pond, flooding many dozens of acres of riparian habitat including the killing of dozens of Atlantic White Cedar, a rare wetland tree species.  

What if the dams at Stony Brook Mill Pond and Stump Pond are not reconstructed? What would this mean for the environmental setting there? Almost immediately wetland dependent plant species and wildlife would repopulate the stream and the adjacent low-lying floodplain and the wetland at West Brook in the Bayard Cutting Arboretum can provide insight. Here, the dam failed in 2019 draining an area about the size of the Stony Brook Mill Pond and naturalists have been studying the result ever since.

Migratory fish now have unimpeded access to the full length of the West Brook watershed. Plants have flourished, emerging from the seed bank that has laid dormant for many decades, awaiting just the right conditions to germinate. Within two years 108 native species of wetland-loving wildflowers began to fill in the mud banks on both sides of West Brook, including an extensive stand of cattails. These plants now support numerous insects including a number of pollinators. 

Underappreciated concerns from dams and dam failures are property damage and loss of human life. These concerns are very likely to grow as the frequency and severity of storm events increases due to climate disruption. 

For example, the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), keeps tallies of storms and for New York noted seven weather related disasters in the 1980’s causing $1 billion worth of property damage. By the 1990’s the total doubled to 14, the same number for the period of 2000 to 2009. 

For the 2010’s? Twenty-nine such events. And in 2023 alone there were seven, the same number you’ll remember for all of the 1980’s. With slightly different circumstances it is not difficult to envision several houses and the occupants within them, living downstream from the failed dams at both the Stony Brook Mill Pond and Blydenburgh County Park, being destroyed and killed, respectively.  

Then there’s the cost of maintaining dams and impoundments. The impoundments behind dams collect sediment which eventually have to be dredged, at considerable expense, or the pond becomes increasingly shallow and eventually disappears from the sediment load. And the warm, still waters in the impoundments are conducive to plant growth, especially by invasive species which often proliferate, eventually covering the entire water surface, compromising other recreational uses like boating and fishing.

For example, the Town of Brookhaven spent more than $4 million of taxpayer funds to combat Cabomba, a species of fanwort that’s a noxious weed, growing in the Upper Lake of the Carmans River (it wasn’t successful in eliminating the weed). 

Suffolk County spent several million dollars more to dredge the sediments from Canaan Lake in Patchogue and Nassau County officials have committed significant staff and equipment in an effort to eradicate Water Chestnut from Mary’s Lake in Massapequa. 

One last example is the state’s more-than-a-decade fight to control Ludwigia, also known as floating primrose-willow, an invasive species that’s proliferated an impoundment in the Peconic River. Multiply these fiscal impacts out to the more than 90 dams and impoundments on Long Island and pretty soon we’re talking real money. Fiscal conservatives like free-flowing conditions. 

For these aforementioned ecological, public safety, and fiscal reasons, the dam at Blydenburgh County Park should not be repaired. A channel, forking from the stream currently,  can be deepened to supply water to the mill wheel if the county ever makes the grist mill functioning again; it has laid dormant for nearly half-a-century. 

The good news is that an alternative vision to repairing the dam at Blydenburgh County Park has emerged that would, some believe, enhance a visitor’s experience: construct a bridge over the stream where the dam gave way so hikers can once again walk around the park and the former pond and add two pedestrian footbridges over the two streams that flow through the park, providing scenic and panoramic views of the stream valleys and diverse wetland meadows that will form. 

A slightly different vision can be advanced for the Stony Brook Mill Pond. Here, the Town of Brookhaven, other levels of government, and the Ward Melville Heritage Organization are moving to restore the dam, an understandable response to what the Mill Pond has meant to the local Three Village community — a landscape that’s loved and cherished. 

The challenge, then, is to determine if there is a way to rebuild the dam and restore the pond but create a richer ecological setting. Can this be done? A good first step would be to incorporate a fish ladder and eel passage that effectively allows for migratory fish to access the pond; the natural-looking rock ramp fish ladder in Grangebel Park in Riverhead and the eel passage further upstream on the Peconic River serve as useful models. Also, establishing a lower pond level through a lower elevation dam would increase stream and streamside habitat for the betterment of the rare salamander and other stream dwelling species. 

Two other actions that could improve conditions at the Mill Pond: 1) Soften the boundary along the eastern edge of the pond by removing the bulkheading encompassing much of the shoreline here, planting this transition area with native wetland plants and wildflowers, and 2) Better control road runoff  into the pond from Main Street. 

A recent conversation I had with someone who assisted in the effort to free stranded wildlife said she noticed an oil sheen on the surface of the remaining pooled water in the southeastern section of the pond where a drainage pipe empties into the pond from Main Street; a number of ducks were swimming around in this water.  On a recent visit, I noticed a few ducks preening and wondered if they weren’t ingesting toxic oil into their bodies in the process.   

If we embrace the alternative described above, a better experience can be had at Blydenburgh County Park and if we make these modifications, a better, more environmentally sound Stony Brook Mill Pond can emerge from the ruins, to once again be enjoyed and valued by the local community. Here, these elements would create enhanced wetland habitat for the betterment of many of our wildlife neighbors — fish, birds, and salamanders alike. And in no small measure, it would  allow for the landscape feature that gave the community its name —Stony Brook — to be enhanced and better protected. Indeed, we’d be putting a bit of the “brook” back in Stony Brook.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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Red-bellied Woodpecker. Pixabay photo

By John L. Turner

Part Two

John Turner

Of the twenty-two species found in North America (twenty-three if you’re optimistic the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists and who doesn’t hope that?) we have seven woodpecker species  inhabiting Long Island’s forests. 

The Pileated is the largest, being about the same size as the American Crow. It is the “Woody Woodpecker” of woodpeckers! They have begun to repopulate Long Island after a long absence, benefitting from the maturing forests of large trees in protected parks and preserves.  

I saw my first Long Island Pileated earlier this year in the Humes Preserve in northern Nassau County, when a male broke out from the tree line and flew across a long  meadow before reaching the woods on the other side, providing a five second view of this unmistakable species. Running to the point where it had re-entered the forest I enjoyed closer views of the bird banging away on the bark of a tree, interspersed with the bird’s raucous call. If you hear them on a hike, look around on tree trunks for their distinctive, rectangular-shaped excavation holes they make in search of beetle grubs, their favorite prey.   

Downy woodpecker. Pixabay photo

In contrast, the Downy Woodpecker is the smallest of the Island’s  woodpeckers and is also quite common, with almost every forest and suburban woodlot hosting a pair of Downies, where they often reveal their presence by their downward slurring “whinny” call. Recently, in a property on the west side of the Nissequogue River, I watched a pair of Downies fly into a nearby black walnut tree and perform a courtship dance. The two forms moved in jerky robotic motions responding to each other — a crazy motion following short bouts of stillness broken once again by motion. This went on for thirty seconds or so before they flew off, leaving a smile on my face.   

The Downy Woodpecker’s slightly larger cousin — the Hairy Woodpecker — is also common and widespread in New York. The Hairy prefers deeper, more intact forests than does the Downy. These two species are easily confused. One clue to distinguish them is found in the white outer tail feathers of the two species. A long time ago, as a youthful birder, I learned this clue: the Downy Woodpecker has black spots on its feather while the Hairy lacks them, which I put to memory using a mnemonic device “The Downy has dots while the Hairy hasn’t”; the Hairy’s bill is also proportionally larger.  

The most beautiful woodpecker that calls Long Island home is undoubtedly the Red-headed Woodpecker. No other woodpecker, or bird in North America for that matter, has the Red-headed’s striking color combination of a brilliant red head and black and white wings and body. Unfortunately, breeding bird data indicates this species is in fairly rapid decline in the state although the cause(s) has not been fully identified. 

Red-headed Woodpecker. Pixabay photo

One reported cause is being hit by cars due to its habit of hawking for insects flying over roads. They are a rare breeder here.  Several years ago a breeding pair nested in Manorville but seems to have vacated the area and there is currently breeding activity in the Flanders of the Pine Barrens.

It’s relative, the Red-bellied Woodpecker,  shows a reverse trend in the state, as this woodpecker, once of a more southerly distribution, has rapidly increased in abundance. In fact, in Ludlow Griscom’s 1923 Birds of the New York City Region, the Red-bellied is reported as being a very rare bird having been seen merely three times in the area, the last being in 1895. However, by the 1960’s the species was well established and has continued to expand its range northward, being a confirmed breeder in slightly more than one-third of the census blocks in the 2005 NYS Breeding Bird Atlas. The bird is now a common breeder here and its breeding range has extended as far north as mid-New England. They are found in virtually every wooded park on Long Island. 

The Northern Flicker, the males being distinguished from females by the black mustache mark they possess, is the most widespread woodpecker in New York. A lover of ants, the Flicker spends more time on the ground to feed on them than any other woodpecker. This predilection for ants, which are unavailable in the winter, is the main reason why flickers are among the most highly migratory of all woodpeckers.

I remember hiking several decades ago through a park in the Long Island Pine Barrens where a wildfire had burned off the forest floor and understory, exposing countless large ant mounds. For the next several weeks I saw Flickers commonly here, taking advantage of countless ants exposed by the fire. 

This leaves, for last, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a bird that, as the name suggests, has a diet different than it’s brethren. Sapsuckers routinely drill small holes, typically parallel rows, in thin barked trees and routinely return to lap up the sap and any small insects attracted to it with their aforementioned brush-like tongues. This species doesn’t breed here, raising its young further north, but both adults and immatures can be seen on Long Island, especially during fall migration.  

There are two other woodpecker species found in New York State but not on Long Island — the Black-backed and Three-toed Woodpeckers. These are Adirondack specialties where they inhabit dense spruce forests. Both species share the basic black-and-white pattern of most other woodpeckers but instead of having red crowns possess yellow ones. They are also distinctive by the three toed feet they have rather than four. They are most abundant in forests where fire has killed swaths of  trees, setting the stage for the many beetles that feast on the dead wood. While disturbance like wildfires typically can adversely affect wildlife,  woodpeckers are a group of birds that can benefit from perturbations in the environment.   

Whether it’s their unique behavior, impressive anatomical adaptations, or ecological importance due to their cavity making abilities, the native woodpecker species of Long Island are an interesting and important part of nature’s fabric here.  Why not spend some time getting to know the species which inhabit yards, parks and woodlands in your neighborhood?

Part I of Wonderful Woodpeckers appeared in the issue of October 24. Read it here.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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From left, a female and male Pileated Woodpecker. The male can be differentiated from the female by its red cheek stripe and longer red crown that extends to its bill. Pixabay photo

By John L. Turner

Part One 

John Turner

Perhaps you remember, from those good ol’ days in high school biology, the phrase the teacher requested that you memorize: “Form begets function.” This truism reflects a universal fact that a strong correlation exists between the form of an animal or body part and the function it performs.

The long legs of a heron, for example, help it excel at wading in the shallow water of pond edges where it employs its long, dagger-like bill to spear fish and frogs. Similarly, the shape of a barnacle, growing on rocks in the intertidal portion of the ocean where crashing waves can dislodge anchored objects, is shaped to deflect wave energy. 

Nowhere is this “form fits function” rule better exhibited than with our native woodpeckers, birds that grip the vertical surface of bark while hammering away on wood. Indeed, from head to tail woodpeckers are the epitome of the truism. Many of their physical features allow them to excel when pecking on wood.  

Let’s start with the tail. Woodpecker tail feathers, especially the middle two, are quite stiff, much stiffer than, say, a blue jay feather. This rigidity is a major benefit as the tail serves as a brace, similar to a telephone lineman’s legs against the utility pole, helping to anchor the bird against the side of a tree. The other part of the anchor involves very strong feet equipped with sharp and powerful claws enabling the bird to maintain a firm grip, a grip enhanced because a woodpecker’s four toes are aligned with two toes in the front and two in the back to better grip bark, compared to a songbird’s foot with three toes in the front and one in the back. 

A male Pileated Woodpecker. Pixabay photo

These anchor points serve well as the woodpecker uses them to actively probe crevices in the bark, as well as to hammer away wood in search of grubs lurking beneath. And this is where the adaptations in the bird’s skull come into play. According to the definitive text on this bird group “Woodpeckers of North America,” a Pileated Woodpecker may strike with its bill, and by extension its skull, 12,000 times a day. Even more remarkably, the deceleration force each time can be as much as 1,200g. This is equivalent to a human hitting their head against a wall while running at 16 mph — each and every strike.    

How does a woodpecker avoid damage to its brain and eyes from the constant hammering? To protect the brain, the skull has developed two thick spongy sections, one in front of the brain and the other behind it, which help to absorb the shock.  In woodpecker species that spend a great deal of time hammering rather than pecking and flicking, this frontal section is larger. A woodpecker’s behavior can also reduce the impact of the blows by slightly changing the angle of each strike  thereby preventing an impact to the same part of the brain with each blow.

A woodpecker’s eyes are also vulnerable to damage and, not surprisingly, here too they’ve evolved several adaptations to minimize damage. With the bird’s head moving at such speed and then coming to an immediate stop their eyes could be damaged and possibly pop out of their sockets. To prevent this, a nictitating membrane, sometimes referred to as a bird’s “third eyelid,” closes an instant before impact keeping eyes securely in their socket and preventing any wood chips from damaging the eyes. Similarly, a tuft of short feathers situated at the base of the upper bill serves to prevent chips from flying into the eyes.

The adaptations don’t stop here, as woodpecker’s tongues might be the most fascinating example of “form begeting function” in this unique group of birds.  The shape of woodpecker tongues is quite diverse. 

A male Northern Flicker identified by his black whisker. Pixabay photo

Sapsucker tongues, which as their name suggest, lick sap from holes (known as sap wells) they’ve created in tree bark, are brush-like to help lap up the liquid. In contrast, woodpeckers that search for beetle grubs in rotted wood have tongues that are stiff and barbed, with some possessing backward pointing spines like a fish hook to assist in extracting prey. Sticky saliva also helps in capturing prey. 

If you stick out your tongue you can feel it is anchored to the bottom of your mouth, toward the back. Not so with woodpeckers. Remarkably, their tongues are not anchored in their mouths at all; they are anchored in their forehead near the base of the upper bill and wraps entirely around their skull. This makes the tongue quite extendable and in Northern Flickers means they can stick their tongues out a full two inches beyond the tip of the bill, a good skill to have for nabbing ants from a distance.   

Virtually all woodpeckers are cavity nesters with most taking the time to excavate the nesting and roosting cavities they use. In this way, woodpeckers play a crucial role in providing nesting opportunities for other cavity nesting birds such as Screech Owls, Eastern Bluebirds, Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice,  and Great-crested Flycatchers. In total, woodpecker cavities are used by more than 40 bird species in North America for nesting and roosting and provide shelter to several mammals such as flying squirrels and even some snake and lizard species.  

Read Part II of Wonderful Woodpeckers in the issue of November 21 or click here.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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Pixabay photo

By John L. Turner

“Forests full of fallen leaves are a gift trees give to themselves.” — Jim Finley

John Turner

Often it is the commonplace things we overlook. We pay little to no mind to trees adorned with the green leaves of summer. But come autumn, leaves with their riotous colors suddenly command our attention, so much so that we sometimes drive long distances to view this annual gift.  And, of course, they also command the attention of homeowners once they fall to earth as it’s time for the annual task of raking leaves.  

What causes the change in leaf color? Trees are finely attuned to environmental conditions and as summer melds into autumn, the changes in temperature and daylight length are slight — hardly, if at all, noticeable to us. But not so with the trees of Long Island’s forests. They are attuned to incremental changes in environmental conditions and the leaf color change is evidence trees have begun to prepare for the impending winter although it is still several months away. 

During the summer leaves are filled with chlorophyll, a vital pigment necessary for plants to photosynthesize. Remarkably, these chlorophyll pigments use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide (the stuff we exhale) to produce the sugars they need to maintain and grow plant tissue while emitting life-giving oxygen for us. Leaves are the food factories of trees. 

As summer wears on, trees begin to break down chlorophyll pigments, reabsorbing the vital nitrogen that’s part of the chlorophyll molecule, which as a result reveals the presence of other pigments. The color of the leaf depends on which of these pigments appear — anthocyanin produces red colored leaves, xanthophyll creates yellow, and carotene results in orange and gold.  As dedicated leaf peepers have learned over the years, a fall season with cool nights and warm sunny days produces the most intense colors. 

There are a dozen or so tree species along the North Shore providing the riot of color that a spectacular autumn burst can bring. Two wetland trees are especially colorful, indeed brilliant — red maple and black tupelo. Their leaves turn an intense orange-red, so colorful it appears if they are illuminated from an internal light source. Tupelo starts turning early, beginning in mid-August. Add to this the butter yellow of the hickories, the lemon-yellow of sassafras, the bright red of scarlet oak (easy to understand how it got its name when you see it in autumn splendor), the similarly colored red oak, the solid tan of beech, the duller orange of black oak, and the solid gold of black birch, and it’s clear that Long Island’s forests can paint an eye-pleasing show!       

In writing this article I came to wonder how many leaves drift to the ground each autumn from trees growing in North America. Sure enough, there was an answer on the Internet — according to one article there are 203,257,948,035 trees in North America (that’s over 203 billion trees). Further, each tree has about 200,000 leaves (seems very high to me, but let’s go with it). Do the math and this results in 40,651,600,000,000,000 leaves (more than 40 quadrillion leaves or 4.06 to the 16th power) falling to the ground each fall. Get out the rakes folks!  

Once you focus on leaves, the intrigue begins concerning the great diversity in size and especially shape. Leaves on Long Island trees basically come in two forms — simple and divided. A simple leaf is a leaf that has a single surface even if that surface has points or lobes. Oak, birch, cherry, dogwood, or maple leaves are examples of simple leaves. Other trees have divided leaves  — hickory, locust, and walnut come to mind — in which the single leaf has several to many smaller leaflets. In this case  the  divided leaf with all the leaflets and not the individual leaflets is what falls from the tree. 

The sassafras tree, a common constituent in Long Island’s forests, has the distinction of having three different shaped leaves growing on the same tree. These shapes have been likened to a glove, mitten, and fist although the glove shaped leaf looks to me more like a dinosaur footprint or the glove of an alien’s hand!   

And then there’s the question of why deciduous and a few coniferous trees shed their leaves before the onset of winter? Given the freezing cold that brings ice and snow with strong winds, if a tree maintained leaves it would increase the chances it topples over as the leaves act as a collective sail. Similarly, the surface area of the leaves gather snow and ice, burdening the tree and branches, likely causing branches to snap. As importantly, if leaves were retained through the winter the tree would attempt to continue to photosynthesize which requires water but water would often not be available in the frozen soil creating great stress on the tree, enough stress to kill it.   

Now you’re thinking that’s fine John but what about all those evergreen tree species like pines and spruces since they retain their leaves throughout the winter. How do they survive since they have to cope with the same conditions that led deciduous trees to  shed their leaves? First, many evergreens have needles which, based on their shape, don’t hold snow or ice like the broad leaves of deciduous trees and are better at passing wind through their foliage. Further, they also often have a waxy coating that retards water loss (this waxy coating on pitch pine needles is one reason why the Pine Barrens can have intense wildfires). Because of these adaptations evergreens can retain their needles and grow in colder climates than deciduous trees.  

Shed leaves play a key role in driving some ecosystems. For example, leaves falling into vernal pools, small seasonal wetlands, form the base of the pool’s food chain. Many invertebrate species shred or decompose the leaves into microscopic pieces which are then fed upon by other animals and bacteria. These species serve as food for predators such as dragonfly and damselfly nymphs as well as many species of frogs and salamanders. Without leaves the vernal pool system would starve and ultimately collapse. 

In Robert Frost’s wonderful poem “Gathering Leaves” he talks about the difficulty and perhaps futileness of raking and bagging them:

 

    Spades take up leaves

    No better than spoons,

    And bags full of leaves

    Are light as balloons.

    I make a great noise

    Of rustling all day

    Like rabbit and deer

    Running away.

 

    But the mountains I raise

    Elude my embrace,

    Flowing over my arms

    And into my face.

 

    I may load and unload

    Again and again

    Till I fill the whole shed,

    And what have I then?

 

    Next to nothing for weight,

    And since they grew duller

    From contact with earth,

    Next to nothing for color.

 

    Next to nothing for use,

    But a crop is a crop,

    And who’s to say where

    The harvest shall stop?

 

His frustration for the annual ritual can, today, be largely avoided by limiting your raking and bagging of leaves by making layers of leaves in your flower and tree beds. Better yet, leave them in place, if at all possible, to help protect all varieties of insects and other animals that benefit from thick leaf cover. As eco-conscious homeowners have embraced: “Leave the leaves!” 

A resident of Setauket, author John L. 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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American Oystercatcher. Photo by Craig Turner
Ruddy Turnstone. Photo by Craig Turner
Red Knot. Photo by Craig Turner
Semipalmated Plover. Photo by Craig Turner
Greater Yellowlegs. Photo by Craig Turner
A flock of shorebirds. Photo by Craig Turner

By John L. Turner

John Turner

On a warm morning in early August, my wife Georgia and I climbed aboard a pontoon boat stationed along a canal in Freeport between two seafood restaurants, joining two dozen kindred spirits excited to explore the marsh islands dotting Middle Bay. While there were several purposes for the trip — getting to know other individuals committed to conservation through involvement in numerous downstate Audubon chapters being a prime one — once the boat began moving birds became the central focus. We were all interested in seeing what birds might be around as “fall” migration gets under way for a variety of coastal bird species. 

The first highlight was several Black-crowned Night-herons perched on large wooden pilings followed by a family of Killdeer standing around on some earthen mounds in a forgotten lot at the corner of the canal and bay. Killdeer derive their name from their ringing call which sounds like their name — kill-deer! kill-deer! killdeer! Killdeer are a species of shorebirds but typically aren’t found along the shore. Rather they are birds of open places like athletic fields and large gravel patches, vulnerable places that sometimes get them and their chicks in trouble.     

Speaking of shorebirds, this was the group I was most hoping to see. Even though we’re on a boat in mid-summer, many species of shorebirds have embarked on their southbound “fall” sojourns, some heading south from breeding grounds situated north of the Arctic Circle. And where might they be heading? Well, some species like Red Knots eventually make their way to Tierra Del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. Many others select other latitudes in South America and Central America while still others choose the southeastern United States or islands in the Caribbean. 

As all these migratory journeys illustrate, shore bird species —plovers, sandpipers and the larger ones like godwits — are indeed globetrotters of the Western Hemisphere.  Nearly two dozen shorebird species are known to undertake non-stop flights of 3,000 miles or more — that’s roughly the distance from New York to Seattle. The fuel? Subcutaneous fat stored under the skin. Take that you ultramarathoners out there! Long Island is one of the many “migratory motels” these highly mobile species depend upon during migration, a key stage in completing their annual life cycles. 

We soon saw a small flock of shorebirds sitting amidst a few common terns along a small pond in the marsh — a single Whimbrel and half a dozen Black-bellied Plovers. In full breeding plumage the latter species is one of the most striking birds in North America — jet black on the breast, belly, lower flanks and cheeks with a white cap on its head and upper neck (please don’t hesitate to pause your reading of this article to check out the image on the Internet). The back is speckled in a salt-and-pepper pattern. 

In comparison, the Whimbrel (once called the Hudsonian curlew), is a modest, understated bird with a back that contains flecking that’s medium brown in color, a lighter brown neck and a handsome crown with two prominent brown crown stripes and two more brown stripes running through the eyes. More prominent still is the long decurved bill, perfectly suited from pulling fiddler crabs from their burrows. The decurved bill gives rise to the generic part of its scientific name (Numenius phaeopus). Numenius means “of the new moon” a reference of the similarity to the crescent shaped bill to the crescent moon that forms right after the new moon. 

Moving south into the bay we slowly worked along the edge of an island and were rewarded by other shorebird species — some ‘peeps’ like Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers and a few Sanderlings. A pair of Greater Yellowlegs, living up to their name with long, bright yellow legs, stood nearby and in the marsh a few Willets were feeding, a larger shorebird species that nests on Long Island. They were soon joined by a few American Oystercatchers, highly distinctive and large shorebirds with long bright red bills that are also local nesting birds.  

We continued on and two more species were soon tallied — Semipalmated Plovers and the harlequin looking Ruddy Turnstone (another fine time to pause to look up the species on the Internet). This turnstone species, another shorebird with some populations breeding above the Arctic Circle, has a ruddy-colored back and tail with black barring, a white belly, bright orange legs, and a distinctive black and white facial pattern with two white spots between the eyes and the base of the bill. While this bold pattern makes the bird stand out while sitting on a rock, dock, or on the sand at a marsh’s edge, it helps the bird blend in while sitting on eggs in its vegetated tundra habitat in the Far North. Ruddy Turnstones get their name from the aforementioned ruddy back and their habit of flicking over shells and stones while foraging for food on the beach. This unique foraging behavior allows them to find food items other shorebirds cannot find.    

Semipalmated Plovers are a handsome shorebird species. A uniform chocolate brown back and top of head with a clean white belly and throat separated by a bold black bar, adults in breeding plumage have an orange and black bill and orange legs. Their name is derived from the fact their feet are partially webbed but not entirely webbed like the foot of a duck. They’re similar in appearance and shape to Piping Plovers, a small shorebird that nests on beaches around Long Island. In fact, one birder has noted that a Semipalmated Plover looks like a sandy colored Piping Plover after being submerged in water and its plumage darkens.

Along the East Coast shorebirds were once actively hunted for sport and to a lesser extent for food and such was the case on Long Island. There are many written accounts of hunting trips to mud- and sand flats, marshes and the outer beach to gun for shorebirds, often using wooden decoys to draw them in. (There were a number of famous decoy makers on Long Island and some of their decoys can be purchased online). The hunting pressure was so intense and relentless and so many birds killed that many shorebird species declined precipitously. 

One species, the Eskimo Curlew, closely related to the Whimbrel, is feared to be extinct from persistent hunting for the table, as the bird was considered quite delectable, containing lots of fat, a fact that led to their colloquial name of ‘doughbirds’. The last known flock of Eskimo Curlews was seen in Barbados in 1963. It was a common shorebird that passed through Long Island during fall migration. Today, almost all shorebird species are legally protected from hunting. One exception is the most ‘unshorebirdlike’ of all shorebirds — the American Woodcock, a forest dwelling shorebird that is still actively hunted.    

Today, shorebirds face threats of a different nature. Habitat loss, as shorelines are hardened or developed, reduces the availability of feeding habitat, compromising the quality of their ‘motel’ experience, and climate disruption adds a huge layer of concern that is hard to measure in how it might affect the welfare of these iconic species. But there are many individuals and organizations working to safeguard shorebirds — from ending shorebird hunting in the Caribbean to artisanal salt farmers in Honduras working to protect habitat for black-necked stilts (we get a few that pass through Long Island every year) to the creation of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) that identifies and protects sites critical as stopover habitat for shorebirds.   

For most of us, shorebirds’ lives are invisible, their existence dependent on remote and wild landscapes often in places so very distant from us that our paths rarely cross. When they do it’s a momentary gift — maybe it’s a scurrying flock of sanderlings retreating from the foam of a crashing ocean wave or the piercing tew! tew! tew! of a greater yellowlegs you’ve flushed from a shore edge while kayaking or watching the broken wing act of an adult piping plover trying to distract you away from its nest or young. As the boat experience illustrates, we are in the season of gift giving. 

A resident of Setauket, author John L. 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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