Saw Mill River Audubon – Connecting People and Nature Since 1953

Quest Bird

SMRA June 23, 2025

A friend of mine saw a rare and beautiful bird at a local park recently: a Prothonotary Warbler, a gorgeous species more typically seen in southern swamplands. Immediately, he did what most avid birders do these days when they spot a rarity: He got the word out.

What happened next had all the momentum of a viral ad campaign. News of the sighting spread on WhatsApp, Discord, and other chat channels, and birders flocked to the patch of woods where the warbler had been spotted. Throughout the day, the bird’s movements were reported in minute detail through precise directions and pins on Google Maps.

Because of all this concerted effort, at least a couple of dozen birders saw the Prothonotary who otherwise wouldn’t have. (Including me.)

Word spreads fast on eBird and other rare-bird alerts

The drawing power of this online grapevine is hard to overstate, especially when it comes to the greatest rarities. For instance, when a spectacular Steller’s Sea-Eagle, normally home in far-off Russia and Japan, visited New England and Maritime Canada a few years back, people came from all over the world to see it. And even less notable sightings can summon birders from other states and regions.

I’m a willing participant in the system, both reporting my own rarities and following others’ tips. Though I didn’t drive up to see the Sea-Eagle, rare-bird alerts and chats have allowed me to add several birds to my life list in recent years. These included a Red-flanked Bluetail, an Asian native that hung out for weeks in a New Jersey yard, which I almost certainly would never have seen otherwise.

A Red-flanked Bluetail female, like this bird, was seen in a New Jersey backyard, Spring 2025. Photo: Wayne Gillatt

But here’s the truth: A big part of me wishes the system had never been created. I know I’d see fewer new birds…but at the same time, it would be easier for me to recapture the sense of wonder I felt before Merlin, Discord, and pins in online maps existed. Back when I spent the summer in the Vermont wilderness with my friend Tom, when the natural world around us was filled with delicious mysteries.

I loved trying to solve those puzzles with nothing but my eyes, ears, binoculars, and old Peterson field guide. Every day I’d sit by an open window, birdsong pouring in from the woods all around as I wrote. Then, when it was time for a break, I’d go try out to discover who was making all that glorious hullabaloo.

Sometimes the answer was easy to learn. That staccato series of tooting sounds? A Black-billed Cuckoo climbing like a squirrel through the foliage. That joyful cry of “Whip! Three Cheers!”? (Or, as Tom called it, “Drink! Three Beers!”) A brazen Olive-sided Flycatcher. The science-fictiony series of notes coming from a nearby field? A Bobolink.

Other mysteries proved harder to crack. For example, one of the characteristic sounds in the woods around the cabin was a high-pitched, slightly buzzy song whose rhythm reminded me of the famous opening notes from Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony.

Unfortunately, the singer always remained hidden in the leafed-out canopy at the top of a tree. I’d crane my neck painfully, but I never got even a glimpse…until finally one day I figured out what to do. Finding a spot that gave me a good view of the treetops, I lay down on the damp ground amid the dead leaves and pine needles and peered upward, waiting for the singing bird to show itself.

Eventually Tom came over to see what I was doing. “You all right?” he asked.

“Just waiting for a bird,” I explained, never taking my eyes off the seemingly deserted treetop.

There was a long pause. Then I heard Tom said “Ohhh-kayyyy,” drawing out the syllables. And that was all. He already knew I was a hopeless case when it came to nature.

Finally, after I’d spent an eternity lying still while countless little forest critters crawled across my skin, the singer showed himself: A beautiful male Black-throated Green Warbler. As it turned out, that’s a species I’ve seen countless times since, including just this week. But I still get a little thrill whenever I spot one, remembering my hard-won triumph that day.

Another puzzle presented a different kind of challenge. While Tom and I were out fishing on the lake early one morning, we heard the strangest sound coming from the woods onshore. It was a muffled, low-pitched thumping, starting slowly and then building over about ten seconds to a rapid crescendo. I seemed to feel the vibrations as much in my bones as through my ears.

When the crescendo ended, leaving nothing but a kind of ringing silence, I looked at Tom. He smiled at my expression and said, “A Ruffed Grouse standing on a log and calling for a mate.” He shook his head, knowing what my next question would be. “They’re pretty hard to see. Very shy.”

He was right about that. We heard the drumming often (it’s actually produced by the grouse flapping its wings rapidly, as the accompanying video shows), but never caught even a glimpse until the day one attacked us.

No, really. We came around a bend in the trail and suddenly this large creature was hissing and charging across the ground directly at our legs. Afterwards, we both confessed that we’d thought we were being mugged by a porcupine—a highly unlikely yet bone-chilling concept. But no, it was a fully puffed-up female Ruffed Grouse, her little downy chicks clustering behind her as she rushed to defend them. In the end, she merely stood close by, glaring, as we edged away and out of sight.

Amazingly, though, my favorite bird from that magical time was one I never glimpsed, even though I spent all summer searching for it.

Pileated Woodpecker in flight. Photo: birdtripper/Reddit

The Pileated Woodpecker.

Going into that summer, I’d never seen a Pileated (it was not a species likely to show up in Brooklyn), but the pictures in my field guide and nature magazines had always entranced me. A woodpecker the size of a crow, with a jet-black body, black-and-white-striped face, white patches on its wings in flight, and a brilliant red crest? Who wouldn’t want to see one?

And there were plenty of Pileated Woodpeckers in the Vermont woods around our cabin. We found the huge, blocky excavations they’d make in trees (and the piles of fresh woodchips they’d leave at the bases) throughout the forest. In what felt like a taunt, a Pileated even visited a dying pine tree a stone’s throw from the cabin, but only when we weren’t there. (The tree eventually gave up the ghost and fell over.)

Pileated Woodpecker feeding holes. Photo: Joe Wallace

Nor were the excavations the only evidence of the birds’ presence. I could hear the powerful drumming as they hammered at tree trunks in the distance, and at least twice I heard a wild, bugling call coming from deep in the woods, far out of reach.

I can only imagine how many times Pileated Woodpeckers saw me that summer, but it was a one-way relationship. And I knew why: Because the birds had decided that they didn’t want to be seen, not by me. And deep down I not only respected but admired that. After all, shouldn’t it have been their choice? They were the ones who truly called these woods home, while I was merely a visitor. An interloper.

Today, people would say that the Pileated Woodpecker was my nemesis bird. But back then its absence felt magical, even mythical, to me. And the search for it enlivened every walk in the woods I took.

Forget “nemesis.” It was my quest bird.

And my quest continued for more than a decade after my Vermont summer, sometimes in ways both amusing and frustrating. For example, for years after college my wife and I lived in Manhattan, and regularly I’d get calls from her father in Harrison in the Westchester suburbs reporting on his latest sighting.

Julian was so uninterested in wild birds that he called them all chickens, but Pileateds impressed even him. “I’m watching a chicken-chopper take apart a tree right now,” he’d tell me over the phone. “Want to come up and see it?”

And I confess that I’d give the idea some serious thought. (Okay, it’ll take me about half an hour on the subway to Grand Central. Then forty-five minutes on Metro North, ten minutes from the station to the bird… I wonder if it’ll still be there?)

Pileated Woodpecker on stump. Photo: www.humanegardener.com

But I never tilted at that windmill. And it was only years later, after we’d moved up to Westchester, before a Pileated finally decide to let me see it. There were no trumpets to herald the moment: Completely unconcerned as my wife and I walked past, it perched in plain view at close range, digging into a sawn-off tree stump.

In life the bird was spectacular, as I’d known it would be, and I was happy to finally add it to my list. Yet I wasn’t as thrilled as I’d expected to be to see my quest finally end. Instead, I was surprised to feel a vivid sense of loss, one that took a long time to fade.

In fact, I still feel this mix of happiness and sadness even today, when Pileated Woodpeckers sometimes visit my own little suburban backyard. Deep down, I think I’ll always miss the years when I was filled with anticipation because I might finally see my first one tomorrow. Or, if not then, the next day.

And that, I think, helps explain why I don’t love today’s methodical, almost clinical approach to finding and IDing special birds. What’s gained are more species for the list. What’s lost: The deeper thrill of solving the mystery for yourself, tied inextricably to the knowledge that you might never solve it at all. There’s a lot to be said for always living in suspense…and in hope.

So, when the first report of the Prothonotary Warbler pinged on my phone, I hurried over, gloried in its beauty, and passed the word along. But then, after a few minutes, I left the bird to others and walked away. Putting my phone back in my pocket, I spent the next couple of hours wandering alone in far corners of the park, simply watching and listening.

I didn’t solve all the mysteries I encountered that day, of course, just as I hadn’t during my summer in the wilderness. Nor would I want to, because to me that’s what makes quests both beautiful and poignant: They can last a day, or a lifetime.

Birding

Still Being Rescued

SMRA April 23, 2025

As long as I can remember, I’ve had two great enthusiasms in my life: writing and nature, especially birds.

People talk about the “spark bird,” the one species—the one sighting—that inspires a lifetime passion. I guess if I had to choose one, it would be the gawky, dinosaur-like Glossy Ibis, which I saw at a very young age when my Dad took me to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

But in truth I was that, even though I was a city kid, I was sparked by all birds, and all the natural world around me. My family’s single-family house in Midwood, Brooklyn, wasn’t exactly located out in the wilds, but it did boast small yards in the front and back, flowering lilacs and rhododendrons, and a towering magnolia tree I’d climb when I wanted to be alone.

And that was all I needed. Together, those small squares of green served to set the imagination of this nature-mad kid afire. They were my Amazon, my Congo, my doorways to adventure and discovery. (Even if my “discoveries” usually amounted to weird grubs, goggle-eyed mantises, and the occasional aggressive bee.)

Eastern Towhee. Photo: Ray Hennessey

And there were birds to see there, too, whose beauty and freedom both entranced me. One spring, I hung a tinfoil bird feeder from a low branch on the magnolia. Then, after school each day, I watched out the back window as it attracted not only seed-eating sparrows and finches but more unexpected species like gaudy Baltimore Orioles, dapper Black-throated Blue Warblers, and Eastern Towhees (though they were called “Rufous-sided” back then). None of these species visited the feeder, but all seemed to recognize that they were safe to rest and forage in our yard before continuing their journeys.

That spring gave me my first glimpse of the vast, unseen river of birds, millions upon millions strong, that passed high overhead during migration nights. I felt awestruck that my little yard was even a tiny island in that river.

I also wanted desperately to join the river myself. As a child I couldn’t do that, of course, couldn’t escape my familiar little neighborhood and explore the great world beyond. So instead I turned to writing, where I could create my own worlds and travel as far as I wanted without leaving my house. When I wasn’t digging for grubs or watching birds, I was upstairs in my room hammering away at my typewriter, writing adventure and science fiction and mystery stories, creating all the worlds I was so eager to visit.

Until I went to college and just…stopped.

Looking back, I can see some reasons why: Over the previous years, my father had suffered from repeated bouts of ill health (two heart attacks, a cancer scare, a mysterious blood disorder) that had brought him near to death more than once. Understandably, my mother, my brothers, and I had struggled under the continuing burdens of fear and uncertainty. It was hard to be creative when the real world around me seemed so all-consuming.

And then, during my sophomore year in college, my parents sold our house in Midwood and moved to a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. Though I was happy for them (they adored Manhattan and wanted to be closer to it), the move left me feeling adrift, cut off from things I relied on, like my neighborhood friends and my favorite pizza place and candy shop.

And, most of all, I felt cut off from nature. Unlike our old house, the brownstone had no front yard and only big concrete deck in the courtyard out back. Sure, there were trees in the courtyard, but none were accessible. They could never be my rainforest, never beckon to migrating birds the way my old backyard had, never inspire me to dream of the big world out there.

Cut off from all that, I stopped writing. For at least two years, I didn’t put a word down on the page that wasn’t part of an assignment. Nor did I look at a single bird or even pay any attention to the world outside my head, except maybe to check the weather.

And yet, even as I had abandoned both writing and nature, I still didn’t recognize the crucial connection between these two foundations that my life had been built on. And I might never have discovered them—much less figured out how to break through what had been blocking me—if my friend Tom hadn’t invited me to spend the summer after junior year in his family’s tiny cabin in the Vermont wilderness.

Tom had gotten a grant to research his senior Sociology project, and he said he’d welcome company in the cabin. “You’re always saying that you want to write,” he pointed out. “So stop talking about it, come up there, and write!”

I often wonder where my future would have gone if I’d turned down his offer, chosen to spend the summer working a minimum-wage job in NYC and sleeping on the saggy single bed in my parents’ laundry room. (There was no extra bedroom for me in the brownstone.) But while I’ve made plenty of bad decisions in my life, I didn’t this time: I accepted Tom’s offer like a drowning man clutching at a lifebuoy.

As the school year came to an end, I withdrew the last of the savings I’d hoarded from my job the previous summer, threw some clothes in a duffel bag, and grabbed my old pair of 7×35 binocs and my Peterson field guide. And then Tom and I headed north.

The one-room cabin had no electricity, no plumbing, only Coleman lanterns for light, a woodstove for heat, and a tiny stovetop powered by Coleman fuel as well. The bathroom was an outhouse or the great outdoors, while for freshwater we hiked with jugs to a well half a mile away. Our second day there, my watch ran down, and I never wound it again that summer. Why bother? We lived by the sun and the weather.

It was heaven. Every day, spiral notebook on my lap and ballpoint pen in hand (no electricity for my typewriter!), I’d sit by an open window that looked out over the greenest world I’d ever seen, and write and write and write. I worked on a thriller set in Uganda (a country I’d visited, and barely escaped from, five years earlier), and the words just poured out onto the page. It was as if all the fears and dislocations of recent years had built an unseen dam somewhere inside me, and the dam had finally been breached. The river could flow clear again.

What breached that dam? Time and peace did…but most of all it was the world outside the window, the one Tom and I got to explore when we put down our books.

Porcupette, young porcupine. Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

We canoed and fished in nearby Lake Ninevah, hiked along rushing Patch Brook, met a mother porcupine and her soft-spined new baby in a young aspen tree, camped amid fields of blueberries on the slopes of undeveloped Saltash Mountain, woke in our sleeping bags to the yipping of coywolves and the bone-chilling shrieks of a bobcat.

And the birds. The birds! I remember so vividly the soundtrack of that summer, and it wasn’t Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” or other top chart hits of the time. It was the “Tea-cher Tea-cher Tea-CHER!” of the Ovenbirds that nested throughout the woods; the “Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody” of the White-throated Sparrows; the loud, unsettling “Who Cooks for You? Who Cooks for You-allllll!!” of the Barred Owls that resounded through the woods on moonlit nights; the haunting strains of the Hermit Thrush’s ethereal song wafting down from Saltash’s forested slopes; and so many more.

I didn’t finish my Uganda novel until long after summer ended, and never saw it published. Nor did I spot any especially rare birds during those weeks. But you know what? None of that mattered. What mattered was that I wrote, living inside my story day after day while the natural world all around filled me to the brim and beyond. Together, writing and nature made me into more than the sum of my parts. They made me whole again.

It’s not claiming too much to say that by showing me that I needed both the world inside and the world outside to create, breathe, live, those weeks in Vermont rescued me. Or that, as I sit here right now, writing this while I listen to the sound of birdsong just outside my window, they are still rescuing me today.

Birding

Gulled

SMRA January 14, 2025

During many, many years spent watching birds, I’ve discovered something about myself: I don’t love some kinds of birds as much as I do others.

I’m not proud of this. After all, I’m devoted to nature and the environment, so all wild creatures should be equal in my eyes. But the truth is that some are more equal than others.

So many pretty warblers! Source: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/spruce-woods-warblers-revisited-60-years-later-the-cast-of-characters-has-changed/

For example, I love warblers, those tiny, candy-colored balls of energy that flood through local forests twice each year on their way to and from their nesting grounds. Other birders find warblers hard to both follow and identify, but I see them as cheery, active symbols of two beautiful seasons in our region. And, with about thirty species passing through this neck of the woods each year, I find figuring out which is which a fascinating and fulfilling challenge.

I also like jays, though for different reasons. They’re big, bold, noisy, and usually easy to see. There are just ten jay species in the U.S., rarely more than one or two in any region, which makes most easy to identify. I especially admire the familiar Blue Jay, the only kind we have in most of New York, because it seems like our kind of bird: One that expresses its opinions loudly and never takes any crap from anybody.

I even like sparrows, because—

Wait. I seem to have gone offtrack here. This column isn’t supposed to be about birds I love, but about ones I don’t. Which brings us to gulls.

How don’t I love gulls? Let me count the ways:

So many gulls. Source: https://ebird.org/news/counting-201

1) Gulls are really, really hard to tell apart. For me, staring at a large flock of gray-and-white birds and trying to name the species is like studying an especially hard “one of these things is not like the others” puzzle. (FYI, I don’t love those either.) The differences—size, beak color, how much black a species has on its wingtips—are frustratingly minor!

Immature gulls are even worse. They’re almost always one shade or another of smudgy brown, and can ring endless variations on that monochrome theme for as many as four years before reaching adulthood. In her novel The Wallcreeper, the writer Nell Zink gets it right about gulls, describing “the many eerie transformations they undergo on their way from being indistinguishable to being basically unidentifiable.”

2) They eat almost anything…with a particular fondness for food we drop or throw away. You’ll often find them—including the rare species many birders chase—at landfills and dumps, in shopping-center parking lots, and on beachside boardwalks…in other words, wherever we’ve left our leavings.

We birders are already the target of a certain amount of amused mockery from those who don’t share our passion. Having to answer the question, “Where are you going with your binoculars?” with “To the dump” seems like cruel and unusual extra punishment. But that’s often where the gulls are.

Herring Gull stare.

3) They don’t know their place in the hierarchy of living things. If you’ve ever been stared at by a gull—for example, across a dropped French fry—you’ll see the intelligence, calculation, and self-confidence in that steely, yellow-eyed gaze. (Apologies for anthropomorphizing here, but you try entering a staring contest with a gull, then get back to me.)

Gulls are also smart enough not to rely on the food we drop or discard. The Internet is filled with videos of the birds snatching little kids’ ice cream cones, adults’ slices of pizza, and even items from stores’ snack aisles. And who’s going to challenge a bird with a beak like a dagger and the evident willingness to use it?

4) On top of all that, they—

Now, wait a second. I need to think about what I’m saying.

I started this essay with a thesis in mind—how much I dislike the whole gull family—and tons of examples to prove it. But as I go on, an unsettling truth has started elbowing its way into my mind.

The truth is: Nearly every example I’ve given you is actually a reason why gulls are actually cool. Really cool, possessing habits and behaviors that make them, in fact, some of the most fascinating—and successful—of all birds.

Let me explain:

1) Gulls are incredibly adaptable.

I complained about how often you see them in parking lots and landfills. But the reality is that they can make themselves at home almost anywhere: Beaches, rocky coastlines, barren islands, even lakes and rivers far from any ocean. Wherever they settle, they can then fly a hundred miles each day to find food. (Whenever a colony of flying ants would hatch out in my landlocked backyard in Brooklyn, a flock of Ring-billed Gulls would immediately appear in the sky above, hovering over my house and plucking the ants from midair.)

And the fact that gulls are generalists, feasting on everything from ants to fish to fries, means that—unlike too many species on our threatened earth—they have a good chance to survive beside us for generations to come.

2) They’re equally comfortable on land, sea, and air.

Ostriches can run faster than 40 miles per hour. Vultures can soar for hours without effort. Loons can swim with matchless ease. But you’ll never see an ostrich fly, a vulture swim, or a loon run. They just can’t do it.

Gulls are among the few birds that can do all three beautifully. They paddle in the choppiest waves, walk comfortably in the busiest parking lots, and fly long distances to find an attractive landfill, an unwary victim walking away from an ice-cream stand, or hatching ants. When it comes to taking advantage of their opportunities, gulls can’t be beat.

They can use tools!

You’ve probably seen it—a gull rising from a rocky beach, concrete sidewalk, or another unyielding surface, carrying a clam or mussel in its beak. Higher and higher it goes, until it finally drops the mollusk, swooping down after it. If the hard shell has shattered, the gull eats the delicate flesh. If not? It tries again.

(Before you point this out: The solid earth itself is as much of a tool as the nutcrackers, hammers, or oyster-shuckers we “advanced” creatures use to break into hard shells.

So when it comes to gulls, what are we left with? Intelligent, adaptable, tool-using creatures that are so successful they’ve colonized every continent, including Antarctica. Even for a nay-sayer like me, that’s worth trumpeting.

All this said, I still don’t love gulls. I’ll always prefer the smaller jewels of the bird world. And when I see a huge gull flock, I’ll still leave it to others to sort through it for that one gray-and-white rarity.

But respect, even admiration? Count me in as a new member of Team Gull.

Birding

Sun and Moon

SMRA September 18, 2024

I almost didn’t go to Croton Point over Labor Day weekend. I visit the park for a quiet time, to see birds, to escape—at least briefly—from the noise and clutter of real life. Those goals don’t jibe well with holiday weekends’ crowds of picnickers and ballplayers, so I usually skip my walks there until the hullaballoo is over with.

This year was different. I’d been away all week for work, and I always feel a little lost if too much time passes between visits to my favorite nearby refuge. So when I woke up on that holiday Sunday morning, I decided to brave it, getting there early to avoid the worst of the crowds.

It was the right choice. Not a stone’s throw from the main parking lot, migrating birds were foraging in the dense riverside brush and oak and maple trees beyond the gazebo. I spotted some pretty warblers—Tennessee, Cape May, Northern Parula—and then had an encounter that I won’t soon forget.

The Yellow-breasted Chat is a big, gaudy, and charismatic bird. It’s also so unusual that scientists have struggled for decades classify it. (Once considered a giant warbler, it’s currently the sole member of its own family.) Though it’s often noisy in breeding season (its “song” is an amazing series of grunts, rattles, whistles, and other sounds), it can also choose to be almost impossible to see, moving silently through dense brush.

It’s a bird that decides when you’re going to see it…and this one decided that I was. As I focused my binoculars on some shaking branches, the Chat came popping out, showing off its sunburst-yellow breast, white spectacles, and olive-green back and wings. I watched as it picked its way from bush to bush, staying in plain view. When, after a minute and half—an eternity in Chat time—it finally retreated again, I was exhilarated.

A thrill like this happens only once on a walk, even if you’re lucky. So I was surprised to feel a similar exhilaration an hour or so later, as I prepared to leave the park.

This time, though, my feelings had nothing to do with birds. While I hadn’t been paying attention, the parking lot had filled with cars and vans. People were carrying foil-wrapped trays, plastic containers, and coolers to the picnic tables and barbecue grills that dot a big riverside field.

I knew that the rest of the day there would be filled with feasts whose enticing aromas would drift across the park. Hot dogs and burgers, of course, but also food from nearly every culture I could imagine. (I get hungry just thinking about it.)

On this day, the parking lot was also a staging area for some kind of Labor Day celebration. It was filled with young people dressed in snappy yellow or red marching-band uniforms and carrying trumpets, trombones, snare drums.

I wasn’t able to stay to watch the bands perform. But I left marveling at the way this one park can fulfill so many different—and seemingly contradictory—needs. I think of it mainly as a refuge for birds, a haven of peace and quiet. On that day, though, I was vividly reminded that others see Croton Point as a place where people from all different backgrounds and cultures can gather to simply to enjoy themselves outdoors. To picnic and play ball under a big, clear sky, sun themselves on a swimming beach, or just hang out together on a beautiful day.

Thinking about this, I realized that the two groups who love the park are like the sun and moon. Every day we share the same course, yet we never quite meet. In fact, too often it seems that we’re in conflict.

Osprey. Photo: David Brown. https://macaulaylibrary.org/photo/54168791

But does it have to be that way? If given the chance, would the people I saw gathering on Labor Day weekend enjoy watching an Osprey dive for a fish, a majestic Bald Eagle soar past, or even a Yellow-breasted Chat lurk in the bushes? And, looking at it from the other direction, could I be more open-minded about what they’re seeking when they visit?

I thought they would. I thought I could. But I wanted to find out.

Just one day later, on Labor Day itself, I started to test my theory. I was standing in the same area where I’d spotted the Chat—no luck this time—when I saw four people approaching. I’d never seen them before and guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that this was their first time at Croton Point.

They all looked to be in their twenties, and though the man, bearing binoculars and a camera with a big lens, was clearly a birder, the three women with him didn’t seem to be. Instead, they were simply wandering around and enjoying the beauty of the place.

My first instinct, of course, was to say hi and move on. After all, I had birds to see! But this time I stuck around. First I birded with the man for a little while. Then, when the women joined us, I introduced myself and described what had been on my mind. How happy I am that the park brings people of all different kinds together, something that’s too rare in Westchester and in the world.

Author Joe Wallace birding at Croton Point Park.

To be honest, I find it challenging to put myself out there with strangers. I think I talk too much and too loudly. But as I went on, I could see them all start to smile. I’ll bet they were wondering if all first-time visitors were assigned their own dedicated park ambassador, especially such a talkative one.

By the time we parted, I knew we’d made a connection. I hope our paths cross again—I’d love to take a birds-but-not-only-birds walk through the park with them someday.

And I wasn’t done being an ambassador, either. A little later, two men stopped me and asked what I was looking at. Again, my first instinct was to be as brief as possible, but again I resisted. Instead, I smiled and said, “Basically, I’m looking at little yellow and gray birds that don’t want to be seen. Exciting, huh?”

They laughed. “But, you know, I find it amazing,” I went on. “Some of them weigh less than half an ounce, yet somehow they can still fly thousands of miles to their wintering grounds every fall. And on that crazy-long journey, they choose our park to stop and rest!”

The two men looked thoughtful. “When you put it that way,” one said, “it is pretty amazing.”

The other nodded. “It’s lucky that they have this place to recharge.”

“Just like us!” said the first.

When you put it that way. As I watched them walk down the path, I heard those words echoing in my head. And I thought: That’s how I can help the sun and the moon meet—by “putting it that way.” By being open and enthusiastic about the things I care about, and equally open to enthusiasms I may not share.

My encounters that day left me wanting to do more. Perhaps some weekend I can offer a free bird walk to the people who’ve gathered for picnics. There’s always something beautiful to see at Croton Point Park, always something unexpected to learn, and I’ll bet we’ll connect just as I did with the others.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep on reaching out. So if you happen to run across a tall, gray-bearded, cheerful guy at Croton Point Park…well, please feel free to ask me what I’m looking at, or to tell me what you’re doing there.

And then let’s chat.

Birding

The Adventure Begins

SMRA July 24, 2024

It all started with a silliest-looking baby bird you ever saw.

I was walking along a path in Croton Point Park when I heard an unfamiliar chattering call. In a place I know so well, any chirp or tweet I don’t recognize summons me like a thrown tennis ball attracts a golden retriever. So I immediately headed towards the leafy maple tree where I thought the call had come from.

Scanning the branches through my binoculars, I saw nothing at first. But then the chatter came again, and after a little more searching I found its source: a newly fledged Baltimore Oriole. It was clinging to the tree’s trunk, looking around with wide eyes, and making a racket as it sidled slowly towards the ground.

Baltimore Oriole fledgling. Photo: Chip Miller

When I say the bird was newly fledged, I mean newly. Its plumage looked too big and bulky for its scrawny body (like a child wearing a grown-up’s clothes), and sprigs of white down stuck out from its head like the remnants of an Albert Einstein wig.

This was obviously the young oriole’s first solo journey, and clearly the baby bird wasn’t at all sure that the whole “leaving the nest” thing was a good idea. And in that moment, all my protective instincts said the same. I felt an intense desire to rush over, “rescue” the baby bird, and then…

And then what? Raise it myself? Bad idea for many reasons, not the least of which were my two cats at home. Or bring it to a rehabber specializing in injured birds? No. The rehabber would only tell me what I already knew: I should have left the young bird to take its chances.

Fortunately, it wouldn’t be taking those chances alone. Though I didn’t spot them from a distance, the young oriole’s parents were undoubtedly close by, ready to feed and protect their offspring as it made its uncertain way into the world.

Even so, I knew the odds were stacked against the little fledgling, just as they’re stacked against every baby bird. And these long odds make sense: Given that Baltimore Orioles usually lay between 3 and 7 eggs, if all—or even most—of the young survived, available habitats and food sources would soon be exhausted. Redundancy is built into the system to increase the odds that some babies will make it into adulthood, not to ensure that they all will.

American Robin fledgling. https://undermyappletree.net/2011/06/04/weekend-birding-fledgling-robin/

And plenty do make it, if life at Croton Point these days is any evidence. To me, it felt as if that baby Baltimore Oriole served as a harbinger of the flood of new life that has filled the park these past few weeks. Everywhere, it seems, are recently fledged American Robins with no tails and speckled breasts; scruffy young European Starlings squalling as they pursue their harassed parents across the lawns; and baby Northern Cardinals who haven’t quite grown into their crests.

What I find most heartening about this season is how many less familiar birds, ones that are threatened by habitat loss, climate change, and other challenges, also manage to breed successfully here. Bobolinks, for example, can nest only in grasslands (a vanishing habitat) like those that cover the park’s central hill. Every year, this precious, restored habitat hosts a healthy crop of young Bobolinks, their yellow-brown plumage blending perfectly with the tall midsummer grasses.

And just today, in a tall maple tree, I saw an adult Eastern Kingbird, nattily dressed in black and white, jam a bright green katydid into the gaping mouth of the young one sitting beside it. Kingbird populations, like those of many songbird species, are gradually declining, making the trees—and katydids—of parks like Croton Point ever more important.

Nor is it only small songbirds that depend on local wild spaces and the food and shelter they bring. Though the male of the park’s resident Red-tailed Hawk pair died this spring (likely after being struck by a car), the female—a true superhero—succeeded in raising two nestlings on her own.

One of the Croton Point Park Red-tailed Hawk nestlings back on April 26, 2024. Photo: Michelle Brigman

The two young hawks are out of the nest and able to feed themselves now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still depend on their mother…or wish they did. On almost every visit to the park, you can hear one or the other letting loose with hoarse cries whose meaning is clear: “Hey, mom! I’m hungry!” Or maybe, more accurately, “I’m hungry! And lazy!”

Though the Red-tails will likely stick around the area all year, most of the birds I’ve described will soon start preparing for the serious task of migration. (Eastern Kingbirds, in fact, can spend the winter as far away as the Brazilian Amazon.) The young birds will stop whining for food, the parents will stop tending to their every whim, and then—too soon—they’ll all vanish till next spring.

Croton Point will be much quieter then, alas. But for now, a tumult of noise and activity and stress and excitement rules every corner of the park, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Backyard Habitats/ Education

A Child’s Gaze

SMRA June 8, 2024

I’ve been head over heels about nature my whole life, and I think it’s made me a reasonably observant person. On even a casual walk, I can usually spot an interesting bird, wary snake or odd bug.

But I also know that I’m nowhere near as good at seeing the world around me as I was as a child.

Of course I’m not. When we’re young, our brains are a lot less cluttered. We’re not constantly making plans, worrying about things we can’t control, replaying conversations, or drifting away in a mental haze. (Or staring at our phones!) When I was little, it felt like I was effortlessly present, focused, and intent. Every bend in the trail, every step, might reveal something I’d never seen before—and I knew that, if it did, I wouldn’t miss it.

And then I grew up. If I never entirely turned my back on nature, too often it became something to be glimpsed amid all of life’s more immediate demands.

Until, inevitably, a child reminded me of what’s truly important.

It was a beautiful day in May, and I was driving my six-year-old son, Jacob, back from a doctor’s appointment. He was due at school, but as we passed a local park—its dense trees shining a glorious green in the spring sunlight—I said on impulse, “Do you want to go for a quick walk first?”

A walk or school? This was a no-brainer.

We parked in Rockefeller State Park’s main lot and headed down the path to Swan Lake…where, for about the next forty-five minutes, we had a nature experience unlike any I’ve had before or since. And nearly always it was Jacob, with his sharp eyes and intense focus, who showed the way.

It all began with snakes. I’d seen the occasional Northern Water Snake along the lake’s marshy edges, but this day it wasn’t just one snake. It was seven. Seven water snakes swimming together, their bodies barely rippling the water as they made their way smoothly across the lake’s surface.

Northern Water Snake eating a fish. Photo: https://www.ontarioparks.ca/parksblog/pinery-watersnake/

We’d barely walked a few more steps before Jacob said, “What’s that sound?” I listened and heard it, too: An odd, nasal groaning coming from the lakeshore a little below the path. Peering down, we spotted another watersnake, its jaws clamped around the leg of a huge bullfrog. It was the bullfrog, struggling to get free, that was making the strange cries.

Watersnakes frequently eat frogs, along with fish, crayfish, and even an occasional mouse. But it seemed like this three-foot-long snake’s eyes had been bigger than its stomach (or its mouth), because even as it hung on grimly, it had no luck getting a better grip, much less devouring the giant bullfrog. Finally, with a last convulsive kick, the frog got free, apparently unharmed, and leaped into the lake to safety.

A little further along, we heard another nasal cry from the water’s edge. Another snake with a mouthful of frog? No: two enormous male bullfrogs standing on their hind legs, embracing each other in bear hugs. Wrestling for dominance and to impress any nearby females, they staggered back and forth, occasionally trying to bite each other.

Bullfrog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bullfrog

Finally, apparently by mutual consent, they let go and went their separate ways. “Who won?” Jacob asked. I said I thought it had been a tie, but that only the frogs knew for sure.

A few steps later, Jacob said that he wanted to go down to the lakeshore, and we did. Squatting there, we watched Eastern Painted Turtles sunning themselves on a nearby log and sunfish darting through shallow water. Then Jacob, his voice excited, said, “Grab right there!”

Following the direction of his pointing finger, I saw only mud, leaves, and twigs resting in about two inches of water. “But—” I said.

“Grab, Dad!”

So I grabbed. And when I lifted my dripping hand from the shallows and opened my fingers, there on my palm sat a tiny, perfect baby Common Snapping Turtle, its shell smaller than a half dollar. It favored us both with its species’ classic dinosaur-like gaze until I lowered it gently back into the water. A moment later, it had buried itself in the mud again and vanished from view.

Snapping Turtle hatchling. Photo: https://www.bluebirdfarmnc.com

“How on earth did you see that?” I asked Jacob. But even as he gave a little shrug, I knew the answer: Because he was a child, and children notice things we adults don’t.

Getting back to my feet, I glanced at my watch. It was time to start heading back. Jacob came along without much of an argument, but even then the wonders of that day hadn’t quite ended. As we neared the path back to the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of something orange hurtling like a comet across the lake towards us.

Looking more closely, we saw it wasn’t one orange comet, but two: Two male Baltimore Orioles fighting over territory, a female, or whatever else these gorgeous and argumentative birds fight about. As we watched, they barreled closer, tumbling through the air, clearly paying no attention to where they were going.

“Watch—” Jacob said. But before he could finish his warning, the two birds, still flying full speed, crashed into a bush right at our feet. Only the soft leaves and small branches prevented them from hurtling straight into the ground and likely doom. As it was, a few moments later they both emerged, unscathed, and flew off in opposite directions. All the fight seemed to have been taken out of them…at least for a minute or two.

Baltimore Oriole male. Photo: Macaulay Library #335265051, Grace C.

After that, it really was time to go, to get back to school and work, our “real lives.” I have no idea what important grownup tasks I accomplished for the rest of that day, but my memories of that brief time in the park have never faded. They come back to me whenever I’m outside with children, showing them a cool plant, bug, or bird and then waiting to see what they want to share with me.

But even more than the memories, it’s the lessons I learned that day that keep returning. No matter who I’m with, or even when I’m all alone, they remind me to slow down, clear my mind, and try to watch the world around me with a child’s gaze.

Advocacy/ Birding/ Ecotourism

Fragile Magic

SMRA April 25, 2024

After a month of rain and cold winds interrupted by occasional warm spells (and earthquakes and eclipses!), spring has finally come to Croton Point Park.

The signs are everywhere. Picnics and enthusiastic multi-generational soccer games spill out across the mowed fields beside the river, where the smells of barbecue from a dozen cultures provoke hunger pangs in those not invited. Near the entrance, shouts ring out from cricket games, inexplicable to the novice but intensely exciting to those in the know. The RV lot, empty in February, is now nearly filled with everything from tiny Airstreams to massive vehicles that look like their owners have brought entire apartment houses on vacation. Even the tent campground is hosting its first intrepid campers.

And it’s not just the people. Nature has noticed the change of seasons, too.

American Robin singing. Photo: Ethan Gosnell

Take a walk away from the crowds, especially early in the day, and you’ll notice that the air is filled with birdsong. Much of it comes from species that have been here all winter—robins, cardinals, woodpeckers—that are newly active and vocal as they pair up and establish territories. Nesting season is so short and demanding that there’s no time to waste.

But the newcomers, the species that have just arrived from as far away as Central America, are even more vivid signs of spring. Eastern Phoebes, a kind of flycatcher, call out their names in nearly every corner of the park. Tree Swallows swoop gracefully overhead or vie for ownership of the nest boxes set up in the park’s fields. Even the first warblers have shown up: Pine, Palm, and Yellow-rumped, all providing heartening flashes of yellow after the long gray-brown winter.

Pine Warbler. Photo: Ryan Schain.

These arrivals are just the beginning of a flood to come. Nearly two dozen warbler species, vireos, orioles, Scarlet Tanagers, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and so many more are currently on their way from South America and other distant lands. It amazes me to realize that these tiny packages of energy and willpower (a Ruby-throat weighs about a tenth of an ounce!) are currently in the midst of flights of hundreds or even thousands of miles.

White Oak flowers.

But signs of spring go far beyond the birds. The park’s gnarled willows are covered in yellow-green flowers and early leaves and the oak trees are starting to bloom. (Keep an eye on the oaks during the coming weeks—their blossoms attract hordes of bugs, making them a favorite spot for migrating orioles, warblers, and other insect-eating birds.)

Meanwhile, a different kind of botanical spectacle is taking place at ground level. In the less disturbed, even hidden parts of the park, this is the season for spring ephemerals—fragile and threatened native wildflowers whose subtly beautiful blooms appear in the early spring and vanish just as quickly. Look carefully, and you can find Dutchman’s Breeches, Trout Lilies, Spring Beauty, and others. Don’t miss your chance!

Dutchman Breeches grow in Croton Point Park. Photo: Anne Swaim

As the season goes on, the quickening of life is visible everywhere. Gray Squirrels and White-tailed Deer were around all winter, of course, but only in the past couple of weeks have I started being scolded by chipmunks again. And I just saw my first Groundhog (aka Woodchuck), recently emerged from hibernation to graze on one of the park’s expansive lawns.

These mammals can be seen throughout our region in this season, of course. But there are others, rarer ones, that show once again how much of a treasure Croton Point is. Recently, a keen-eyed visitor came upon a set of tracks in the sand of one of the park’s beaches. Large, with five-clawed toes, the tracks could only have come from a member of the family Mustelidae, the fascinating group of small- to medium-sized carnivores that includes weasels and minks.

Possible Fisher Tracks at Croton Point. Photo: Ryan Gerbehy

But the size of these prints and the animal’s bounding gait point to one of two spectacular species. It might have been a Fisher, a forest-dweller that can grow to more than three feet in length and weigh more than 10 pounds. Could the park host a small population of this rare predator? It’s possible.

Or the tracks could have been left by a North American River Otter, a species that uses the Hudson River and its bays as highways. Just to think of one choosing Croton Point to rest and explore is exciting…as is the prospect of looking down at the shore and seeing one, or perhaps a whole family of them playing on the beach.

Eastern Phoebe. Photo: Armindo Barata

Picknickers, campers, Eastern Phoebes, Great Horned Owls, Dutchman’s Breeches, Woodchucks, and River Otters: There are few places in the region (on earth?) that show more vividly how it’s possible for humans and nature to successfully coexist, even in a mere 500 acres of grassland, coastline, and scrubby forest.

But as is inevitable in today’s world, it’s a delicate balance. If it tips over, it’s the wild things that suffer, as always. So as you enjoy your spring walk, picnic, barbecue, or cricket match at Croton Point or one of your own favorite parks and preserves, please take a moment to appreciate how precious this all is.

And, when you’re back home at the computer, share your feelings. Tell your friends—or better yet, bring them along on your next nature walk. And let your representatives, park officials, and other decision-makers know both how much you appreciate the work they’re doing and how important it is that they keep going. (Please also feel free to let them know where they still need to improve—I certainly do!) To make that easier, here are some phone numbers and email addresses for some Westchester County officials:

New York State Senator
Pete Harckham
914-241-4600
harckham@nysenate.gov

Westchester County Executive
George Latimer
914-995-2900
ce@westchestercountyny.gov

Westchester Parks, Recreation,
and Conservation Commissioner
Kathleen O’Connor
914-231-4504
parksinfo@westchestercountyny.gov

The fragile magic of these places is in their hands, and ours.

________________________

Screenshot 2024-02-05 at 17-09-38 Tom on Instagram Catbird singing in the rain #graycatbird

Birding

Learning to Listen

SMRA February 5, 2024

Recently, following minor throat surgery, I was prescribed a week of full vocal rest. In plain English, that meant complete silence: no shouting, no whispering, no speaking of any kind. For seven whole days.

It’ll come as no surprise to learn that I love to talk, so I was prepared for my silent stretch to be an almost insurmountable challenge. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was a revelation. I came out of the week remembering something I forget too often: How much joy can come from listening.

Listening…and trying to understand what you’re hearing.

During the week, I took several solitary walks in Croton Point Park. More consciously than I ever had before, I focused on the sounds around me: the snow crunching under my feet, sheet ice clattering in Haverstraw Bay, and the wind whistling through the dry grasses on the hill. And the birds, of course, because even in this quiet winter season, the park was full of their announcements and warnings and conversations.

Listening, I knew that whenever they called or sang, they were always trying to communicate something. But could I learn what their messages meant?

Sometimes the meaning was clear. For example, that rusty-red Fox Sparrow singing its lovely song from a weedy patch was announcing, “Keep out!” That made sense since its winter territory was rich in seeds and other food items that would help it survive until spring.

The same with two other birds that perched up in plain view and yelled at me as I walked by: a Northern Mockingbird giving loud “chuck” sounds and a Gray Catbird its familiar nasal “Meow!” In both cases, the birds were guarding tangles of vines laden with Bittersweet and other berries—food these two birds rely on during the winter. Who wouldn’t defend a packed larder like that with a harsh call?

But not every message was as easy to decode. On one of my walks, during a thaw, I heard the raucous alarm calls of a group of Blue Jays. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, since jays are almost always noisy, often seemingly just for the fun of it. But when I did look, I saw something curious: a group of six or eight birds clustered around a large knothole about twenty feet up in an old oak tree, staring into it and shrieking like outraged infants.

This is known as mobbing behavior, and Blue Jays and other birds only practice it when they perceive a real threat. The tree cavity was sharply angled upward towards the sky, so I couldn’t see what was inside. But something definitely was, something that bothered the Blue Jays enough that when I finally left, they were still hurling abuse into the hole. “Stay away!” they were warning each other and any other bird in the area. “Danger lurks here!”

Given the size and angle of the hole and the birds’ behavior, my best guess was that the cause of all the ruckus was a snake. Snakes don’t fully hibernate during the winter. They brumate, a shallower sleep that allows them to rouse themselves on warmer days, emerge from their dens, and soak up some sun. Somehow this snake had caught the attention of the park’s Blue Jays, who were letting everyone within earshot know what they’d found.

Other times, the alarm had nothing to do with the calls I heard. A pair of Great Horned Owls raise their young in the park every year, laying their eggs in February. (Owl eggs can survive frigid temperatures and even being temporarily covered in snow!) Their hooting, alternating between lower and higher pitches, was a duet between the male and female of the resident pair.

Scientists think that these duets serve two purposes. One is to let any nearby owls know, “We’re here and we’re nesting, so keep out!” Also, Great Horned Owls mate for life, and by calling back and forth (sometimes while looking into each other’s eyes), the owls reaffirm their commitment to each other.

But figuring out what some birds were saying was no sure thing. Near the end of one walk, I was approaching Teller’s Point, the southernmost tip of the park, when I heard a series of high-pitched, twittering notes.

It’s strange: Although I’ve heard these odd calls many times, it always takes me a minute to figure out what’s making them. This time, all became clear as I watched an adult Bald Eagle, perched on a high branch and looking out over the steel-gray Hudson River, open its huge beak, throw its head back, and call again.

But what was this solitary eagle, its back to me, trying to express? For a few moments, I puzzled over various theories. But then I stopped and laughed at myself, realizing that understanding these mysterious sounds didn’t matter, not to the magnificent bird or to me, either. Whether the eagle was expressing joy or frustration or alarm, or simply liked hearing the sound of its own voice, was its own business, not mine.

That was another lesson I learned during my week of silence, another bit of knowledge I hope to keep with me now that I’m back in the speaking world: Not everything has to be analyzed and figured out. Sometimes it’s okay—more than okay, better—to just stand there, soak it all in, and enjoy.

Backyard Habitats

Notes from Underground

SMRA December 12, 2023

I tripped over a mountain at Croton Point Park yesterday. A really tiny mountain.

It was the first time in a while that I’d nearly face-planted from such an encounter…but, alas, I’m sure I’ll be doing it again soon. Because these days every mowed lawn and other flat expanse in the park seems to be crisscrossed by miniature mountain ranges, and their number seems to grow every day.

What creates these annoying impediments to safe wandering? Anyone who’s ever had a yard probably already knows the answer: moles. Those busy little subterranean diggers that tunnel under our gardens, destroy the roots of our carefully planted flowers and vegetables, and turn our lawns into works of abstract art.

In my decades of wandering around, I’ve undoubtedly passed within a few feet of hundreds or even thousands of moles. But it wasn’t till I stumbled over that tiny mountain at Croton Point that I realized something: I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a living one in the wild.

That fact—a lifetime’s proximity, no direct proof that the animal exists—surprised and intrigued me. So I decided to do a deep dive and find out more about these odd, annoying, and mysterious creatures that scuttle around under our feet. What I learned surprised and fascinated me.

True moles are found across much of North America, Europe, and Asia. (The golden moles of southern Africa and the marsupial moles of Australia are not closely related to them or each other, having evolved the same look and behaviors separately.)

Seven species are found in North America, including three that live here in New York: the Hairy-tailed, Star-nosed, and the ones likely building the tiny mountain ranges beneath my feet, the Eastern Mole. (The term “Eastern” is relative, as the species is found as far west as Colorado.)

Unsurprisingly, moles’ physical appearance reflects the demands and requirements of the niche they’ve evolved to fill. Contrary to some popular beliefs, they are not blind. All moles have working eyes (though often concealed behind fur), and while they’re thought to be colorblind and quite nearsighted, many are actually quite good at recognizing subtle shifts in light. Similarly, though their ears are usually tiny and completely hidden by fur, moles’ sense of hearing is acute. As is their sense of smell.

Moles’ fur is thick and velvety, making it resistant to getting clogged with dirt or mud. Their hindlimbs are small, but their forelimbs are large and muscular, ending with large paws resembling human hands that are tipped with powerful claws ideally suited to digging.

At first glance it appears that moles have six fingers, exceeding the number of digits found anywhere else in the animal kingdom. But it turns out that the sixth finger is actually a modified wrist bone. It’s another evolutionary quirk that has helped moles survive and become superstar excavators since the Late Eocene Period (37–33 million years ago), when Eotalpa anglica, the “Dawn Mole” first evolved from shrewlike ancestors.

Having learned about mole bodies and evolution, I was interested in finding the answers to some puzzling questions. For example: How do they survive in a virtually airless underground environment? And exactly what it is that they’re doing down there all day, besides building speed bumps for unwary passersby?

It turns out, as it does so often, that the answers are more complex than I’d ever expected. Eastern Moles can thrive down below because they’re ideally suited to their niche. Like all mammals, they take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide (CO₂), but they’ve evolved the ability to tolerate high CO₂levels (higher than any other mammal) via specialized red blood cells.

In addition, mole hemoglobin (the protein in the red blood cells that carries the oxygen all mammals need to survive) is extraordinarily good at taking in and utilizing the oxygen that does exist in their tunnels. This means that the animals can repeatedly breathe in the same air they’ve breathed out without becoming light-headed, passing out, and eventually dying of asphyxiation.

And what’s the story with the tunnels crisscrossing the lawns and fields, the ones that create those minuscule mountain ranges? Turns out that their main purpose is not for transit between one burrow and other, as I’d assumed. They’re actually earthworm traps.

Moles will eat most kinds of grubs, ants, and other bugs they encounter, along with a little plant material. (When they destroy your garden it’s usually because they’ve cut away the roots to clear their passageways, not to eat them.) But what they love most is earthworms—and they sure need to find a lot of them. An adult Eastern Mole may eat 20 or more worms in a day, consuming more than half its own weight daily.

That’s where the tunnels come in. They create an unexpected underground opening that earthworms fall into when they’re moving through the soil. When a worm tumbles into a tunnel, the resident mole—relying on its excellent hearing—comes racing down the passageway to gobble it up.

How quickly do hunting moles identify and consume a worm? They’re all remarkably fast, but when it comes to the Star-nosed Mole (a resident of eastern North America), the answer to the question is hard to believe. Having approached a potential meal, the mole uses its extraordinary star (which is made up of 27 stunningly sensitive sensory appendages known as Eimer’s organs) to decide if it’s edible. This process takes…8 milliseconds. That’s eight thousandths of a second.

Once identified, the snack goes down the mole’s gullet in as little as 120 milliseconds, or a bit more than a tenth of a second. Unsurprisingly, Star-nosed moles are considered the fastest eaters of any species on earth, and other moles are almost equally efficient.

In fact, “efficiency” might be the most accurate buzzword for moles as a whole. Surrounded by a buffet of tasty earthworms that pretty much fall into their laps and living in areas where few predators (except for an occasional weasel and snake) can reach them, they can go about their business with little to complain about.

Well, they probably don’t appreciate my clumsy feet collapsing sections of their tunnels. But I doubt it bothers them much, either. They’ll just use their powerful front legs and extra thumbs to excavate a new one.

After all, moles have lived beneath the feet of far bigger, more powerful creatures for millions of years. And here they are beneath ours, usually invisible to us but always near at hand. By now, I imagine they must take clumsy humans like me in stride.

Birding

Sunset Dance

SMRA October 16, 2023

The alert came in at around 6:00 in the evening: More than 200 migrating Common Nighthawks spotted flying past a nearby hawkwatch. Then, a few minutes later, a second alert: Dozens of nighthawks were flying over downtown Croton, near where I live.

Creatures of dusk and dawn, Common Nighthawks are among my wife’s and my favorite birds, and one we hadn’t seen in recent years. So the local report sent us outside to stand in the middle of our street, staring upward. (I can only imagine the looks we got from our non-birding neighbors!)

And there the nighthawks were: First one, then more—three a time, five—winging overhead. We recognized them instantly by their mottled gray, brown, and buff plumage, the white blazes out near the end of their long, angled wings, and their loose-jointed flight as they dipped and darted high above. It was a ghostly and wondrous sight.

As we were watching, we suddenly noticed something else: The nighthawks weren’t alone up there. Wheeling and diving among them were smaller dark birds with cigar-shaped bodies and sharply pointed wings: Chimney Swifts. And then yet another player entered the scene: Medium-sized bats flickering across the darkening sky.

And even that wasn’t all. Zipping back and forth just above the rooftops was a swarm of large dragonflies, their stiff, direct flight contrasting vividly with the skidding style of the swifts, the bats’ sudden shifts in speed and direction, and the tilting swoops of the nighthawks.

What we were seeing, in eerie silence as the sun set, was a feast. A gathering of four insect-eating creatures that represented three different animal kingdoms while sharing the same goal: Finding enough food to survive the coming winter.

The nighthawks had the longest journey ahead of them. They spend the summers as far north as northern Canada, nesting on gravel beaches, rocky outcrops, and open patches in the forest. (And, at least historically, on flat gravel rooftops in towns and cities, though they can’t use modern rubberized roofs.)

Rarely seen in more than ones or twos for most of the year, Common Nighthawks can travel in loose flocks numbering in the hundreds—even thousands—during fall migration. Their destination: as far south as Argentina, a journey of nearly 7,000 miles.

Unlike nighthawks, Chimney Swifts are communal most of the year, roosting and nesting in colonies (most often in chimneys) and migrating in flocks as well. If you happen to live near a roost site, as we do, you may be lucky enough to see them spiraling in a tiny tornado above their chosen chimney, with some disappearing down it each time they circle around.

Our local roost had seemed almost deserted for a week or more, so the Chimney Swifts we saw from the middle of our street were likely migrants from further north. Like the nighthawks, they winter in South America (largely in the Amazon basin), a distance that can exceed 3,500 miles. It’s quite the trek for a bird that weighs less than an ounce!

We weren’t sure which of New York’s nine species of bats we were seeing, only three of which migrate for the winter. (The other six hibernate closer to home.) It was fascinating to watch the bats effortlessly shift their speed and direction as they foraged for insects we couldn’t see in the dusk. When I was a child, I could hear the high-pitched chitter of the bats’ sonar as they homed in on their prey. But now I had to be content with admiring their remarkable hunting technique in silence.

The most unexpected participants in the evening feast were the large dragonflies, which stayed lower than the other three. (Perhaps because Common Nighthawks and some bats eat dragonflies!) The ones we saw were almost certainly Common Green Darners, among only a few dragonfly species that migrate, often in impressive swarms.

Green Darners have a fascinating life cycle. These had been born in ponds and lakes in the Northeast and were heading to the warmer parts of North America for the winter, but that’s the only straightforward part of their journey.

Once they reach their winter homes, they’ll mate. The females will lay their eggs in ponds, and then all the adults will die. The aquatic nymphs that emerge from the eggs (fierce, wingless predators that bear little resemblance to the adults) will live in their ponds for months—sometimes years—before transforming into adults.

Green Darner Dragonfly. Photo: Atlas Obscura

Some of these new adults will then migrate back north. Others, though, will stay where they are, breeding, laying eggs, and dying, leaving it to the next generation to take the return journey. Regardless, the dragonflies that make the trip somehow know how to find their northern breeding grounds without ever having been there before.

Once arriving in our area, Green Darners will go through the same process: breed, lay eggs, die. The nymphs will hatch, and while some will stay in this form for a year, others will become adults the same summer to head back south.

Little Brown Bat flying. Photo: Jordi Segers/Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative

Nighthawks, swifts, bats, and dragonflies differ in so many ways. But one thing unites them: Complex, infinitely challenging survival strategies whose success seems almost miraculous. Yet succeed they do, year after year, even in a world that seems ever harsher and more unwelcoming to them.

As we stood in the middle of the street, though, we weren’t thinking about any of this. Instead, we simply felt fortunate to witness the silent spectacle taking place above our heads. This stunning sunset dance, where each performer seemed to be attuned to an intricate melody they alone could hear, while we earthbound humans could only watch and marvel.

1 2 3 4 ›»