April 2023 – Saw Mill River Audubon

April 2023

All Are Welcome Here

SMRA April 25, 2023

“What are you looking at?”

It’s a question I hear often during my walks in local parks and nature preserves. And that makes sense: After all, when I’m outdoors you’ll often find me peering through binoculars, staring at something invisible to casual passersby.

Almost always, my first response to the question is a pang of annoyance, which I try to keep hidden. Don’t they realize that I’m watching a bird here? Don’t they understand that I want to be left alone? Don’t they get it that I often come to the park just to avoid talking to anybody?

Well, no, they don’t. They haven’t thought about it as deeply as I have. They just want to find out what I’m looking at. So I take a deep breath, lower my binocs, and turn, often finding a young person or parent and child standing there. Sometimes it’s even a newbie birder, binoculars in hand.

I muster all the enthusiasm I can and point out what I’ve been focusing on. Perhaps it’s a Yellow Warbler singing from its scrubby perch, or a Great Blue Heron flapping overhead like an ancient pterodactyl, or a small flock of Purple Martins wheeling around their nesting gourds.

I always try to make the sightings come to life: I describe how Martins are completely dependent on the nesting sites that we build for them; how all living birds truly are dinosaurs, and herons certainly look the part; how Yellow Warblers are just one of the flood of spring migrants coming this way from as far away as South America.

As I talk, I find my enthusiasm becoming real. (Birds’ background stories are cool!) And almost always, my interest is matched by my listeners’. Often it turns out that they have their own nature stories to share, and I learn something from them, too. More importantly, we have a moment of connection before they walk on and I raise my binoculars again.

The author. “What are you looking at?”

Perhaps this all sounds obvious—of course you should share your enthusiasm with others—but the truth is, too often we birders don’t. Like me, many other birders value (even crave) the solitude, the silence, the undisturbed chase that birding can provide. Some also worry about the growing popularity of the pursuit, fearing that the arrival of hordes of newcomers will make favorite spots less enjoyable to visit. (It reminds me of Yogi Berra’s description of a newly popular nightclub: “Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded.”)

So I know that I’m far from the only one to suppress a sigh when I’m approached by a curious stranger. And I confess that as I turn, putting a smile on my face, I sometimes wonder why I’m doing it. Why bother to give more than a polite but terse answer? Why disrupt my own experience—and maybe miss seeing a rare bird—to welcome an outsider into my world?

To me, there’s both a casual and a deep response to those questions. The casual one is, Why not bother? Is this world so filled with warmth and human connection that we should disdain the chance to add to it? Even if a listener doesn’t end up sharing my enthusiasm, I always feel better for having tried.

Honestly, I think this moment of connection is a good enough reason on its own. But the deeper one is even more important. Why bother? Because the future of our beloved local preserves—and all the world’s dwindling wild places—depends on it.

The future? How can that be? Let me give you just one example out of an unimaginable myriad from around the world: the grassland hill that is Croton Point Park’s most striking feature. Notoriously, that hill was once a toxic-waste dump, a Superfund site, an abandoned landfill. And even after it was capped, it remained a scrubby mass of weeds, invasive plants, and trash.

Today, though, it’s covered by native grasses and other plants that are exceptionally beautiful in every season. Crucially, the reclaimed habitat attracts threatened Bobolinks, American Woodcocks, and Grasshopper Sparrows, along with a host of butterflies, bees, dragonflies, and other plant, bird, and insect species whose grassland refuges elsewhere are vanishing at a frightening rate.

The transformation of a toxic dump into a welcoming grassland didn’t just happen. It took the concerted efforts of a host of individuals and organizations (including Saw Mill River Audubon) to turn the landfill into a place worth celebrating and saving. But the job isn’t done: Once reclaimed, it and other preserves don’t maintain themselves. Invasive plants and other threats are always encroaching, and conservation budgets are perennially skimpy.

So to me it’s simple: The fate of countless wild areas around the world depends not only on people like me, but on future generations of equally passionate advocates. And where will those advocates come from? Perhaps they’ll include some of those who are already interested enough to stop me and ask that tentative question: “What are you looking at?”

Of course, I never know what will happen after I show someone that Yellow Warbler, Great Blue Heron, or Purple Martin. Undoubtedly most people forget our little interaction before they even leave the park. But the idea that a few—or even one!—might take a deeper interest, become involved, fight, gives me hope for the future of our fragile planet. And hope is a precious thing…even if I have to miss a bird to experience it.

Backyard Habitats/ SMRA

Where Did You Go?

SMRA April 3, 2023

It was a cool but sunny day in mid-November. I was walking in Croton Point Park, taking in all the signs of winter coming: the fallen leaves, the silvery look the river gets at that time of year, the woods’ silence after migrating birds have already departed for warmer climes.

Then I noticed that some of the birds that do stick around all winter—chickadees and titmice—were kicking up a fuss in a nearby tree. The little birds were scolding something…but I could tell it wasn’t a hawk or owl. Instead of looking up into the branches, they were perched at eye level and staring down at the ground.

Following the direction of their angry gazes, I scanned around the base of the tree. It took me a minute or two to spot what was upsetting them, and when I finally did I was surprised: It was a beautiful young Milk Snake, a cold-blooded creature I’d assumed would have already been safely tucked away for the winter in some cave or woodpile. But here it lay, basking in the sun, seeming in no hurry to go anywhere.

As so often happens when something in nature surprises me, I went off to do some research. If snakes were still out in November, I thought, I clearly had something to learn about hibernation.

Turns out I had plenty to learn. I wasn’t even aware that only warm-blooded animals hibernate. Milk Snakes—and all other cold-blooded creatures—do something different: They brumate.

What’s the difference? At first glance, the two methods of surviving northern winters seem quite similar. In both cases, the animals’ breath, heartbeat, and metabolic systems slow down to just a fraction of their summertime rates. (Eastern Painted Turtles, for example, can reduce their metabolism by 99%, while their heart may beat just 8 times an hour.)

Mammals that hibernate, like Groundhogs, try to gain as much weight as possible before they settle down to sleep all winter. (Anyone who’s seen a nearly circular Groundhog in September already knows this.) Once they’re safely ensconced in their winter den, they slowly burn off their fat reserves, surviving till they emerge in spring and resume eating.

But cold-blooded creatures cannot gain massive amounts of weight as easily as warm-blooded ones, so they don’t have the option of sleeping through the winter. Instead, when a thaw comes, brumating animals wake up to eat, drink, and warm themselves in the sun. Then, when the cold descends again, they go back to their den and to sleep.

The need to be up and about, especially in a season with little undergrowth to hide in, leaves cold-blooded creatures like the Milk Snake more vulnerable than mammals to predators, extended cold snaps, and other threats. On the other hand, brumation does come with advantages, including at least one that seems hard to believe.

Take familiar reptiles like snapping and painted turtles. As winter approaches and ponds start to ice over, they’ll dive to the bottom and bury themselves in the mud, which remains unfrozen. There they go into a state of torpor—and stop breathing.

It’s true. Common Snapping Turtles, for example, can go for more than three months under water without taking a single breath. How on earth do they accomplish this feat? Part of reason is that being cold-blooded, their organs and other vital processes don’t require a steady stream of energy—and therefore large quantities of oxygen—to keep warm.

But they do require some fresh air from time to time. They obtain it via areas of their body where masses of veins lie close to the skin surface. These surfaces include the cloaca, the opening at the turtle’s rear where eggs are laid and waste expelled, and where special structures absorb the oxygen and transfer it to the animal’s bloodstream. (This technique, which allows the turtles to survive at the bottom of a pond, is called “cloacal respiration” or, more colorfully, “butt breathing.”)

When they become aware of a midwinter thaw, turtles wake up enough to rise to the surface, inhale some much-needed air the traditional way, and even find a rock or log and bask for a while in the sun. In this way, they and other brumating animals make it through the winter

I walked in Croton Point Park earlier today, as I do most days, but saw no snakes or turtles. Since the temperature reached fifty degrees, though, I have no doubt that somewhere nearby, snakes, turtles, frogs, and other cold-blooded creatures were already enjoying the warm sunshine just as much as I was. I can’t wait to encounter them along the trails again soon.