August 29 - September 24 -FI Newsmagazine Egrets and Herons of FIFire Island Newsmagazine - August 29 - September 24 Page 15
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
American or common egret —This handsome all white three foot egret can often be seen stalk -
Ing along the bay front of Fire Island.
FRITZ'S WINTER
By John W. Chambers
Antheneum II7pp
$8.95
by Peter McKenna
The Arnold family, on the last trip of the
summer to their eastern Fire Island home,
misplace their beloved Siamese cat, Fritzi.
After a frantic but futile search, the
downcast Arnolds leave on the last ferry,
and Fritzi, uninitiated in ways of the hunt,
must learn to fend for herself for one long,
cold Fire Island winter.
Can this heretofore overprotected feline find
her place in the intensely competitive
struggle for food on a desolate barrier beach?
Can she elude the diving osprey, can she
outsmart the wild dogs, the trigger -happy
deer hunters and the quick gray fox?
Fritzi, of course, survives. Unlike many of
the domesticated animals who each winter
are abandoned and die on Fire Island, Fritzi
manages to overcome the rigors of winter.
John Chambers has spun a beautifully
written and clever story about a cat that is at
once a warming bedtime tale for children and
an imaginative, richly detailed commentary
on animal behavior for adults.
To survive, Fritzi must summon up her
seldom used predatory instincts. It is this
process, described in painstaking detail by
Mr. Chambers, that separates the book from
so many other sugar - coated child - pleasers.
Near starvation and prowling the beach for
food, Fritzi observes that sea gulls often
fight for possession of freshly caught fish.
At this point Fritzi is also wise enough to
notice that it is difficult to fight and carry a
fish at the same time. After following two
warring gulls down the beach, Fritzi is
rewarded with a discarded fish, her first self -
produced meal. Mr. Chambers describes
Fritzi's coming out with these lines: "At
first she ate too quickly, and her stomach
objected violently, causing her to vomit.
After that she ate more slowly, and as the
nourishment entered her system, a slow
warmth began to effuse her body. For the
first time in a month she had a sense of well-
being. She began to purr softly. It had been a
stroke of luck, of course, but luck is a
concept reserved for human beings. An
animal lives in the moment. Fritzi had
hunted, and she had found, and the present
was secure. The future had no place in her
calculations."
And so Fritzi's survival, from moment to
moment, went on. Mr. Chambers, it is
evident, has spent copious time noting the
habits and instinctual abilities of cats. He
confirms what cat lovers have long known:
cats are smart, adaptable, and eager to trust
humans who return their gentleness.
Thanks to its artful, language and in-
telligent tone, " Fritzi's Winter" recalls the
warmth and sensitivity of books like E.B.
White's "Charlotte's Web" and other
childhood treasures that will long linger in
our mind's eye.
Mr. Chambers, a resident of Blue Point
Beach, the eastern Fire Island setting of the
book, originally wrote " Fritzi's Winter" for
his two children. Mr. Chambers is the author
of several other novels and writes a regular
column on rare wines for Medical Tribune.
ERRATA
Mrs. Florence Daly, of the Dunegate Motel
in Kismet, is 68, not 72, and we regret the
error.
PHOTO CONTEST
SEE PAGE 39
EGRETS AND HERONS
OF FIRE ISLAND
by Paul Stoutenburgh
How often have you been around our bay
edges and marshes and seen a large white
bird and wondered what it was? Years ago
they were quite rare and whenever you saw
one there would be a rush to Peterson's Bird
Guide to see what it was. Today you can
pretty well bet that if it's all white and seen
on Fire Island, it's the beautiful snowy egret.
Some people call it the yellow - slippered bird
because of its yellow feet.
Snowy egrets are skilled in the art of
fishing. To watch one is a superb lesson in
slow- motion stalking. First one foot and then
the other slowly lifts out of the water and
then goes back in without a ripple. All this
time the bird is gleaning the shallows for the
slightest bit of motion. Then with a darting
bill the head drives down and ahead and
snips up a small killifish or other tidbit from
the shallow waters. This is just one set of
procedures the bird has for fishing. Another
more comical and active method is when the
bird is in an area that adapts to stirring up
the bottom. Here the bird uses its feet in a
rapid up and down motion to cloud up the
muddy bottom and lure small fish within
striking distance. This technique is comical
to watch and I must say, very efficient.
The snowy egret gained notoriety by being
the bird that was almost wiped out by
demands of the millinery trade for feathers
used to decorate women's hats. Great
crusades to gather these plumes were directed
at the nesting colonies of these birds in the
south. The adult birds were shot on the nest
or when they returned to feed their young.
Feathers were then plucked from their dead
bodies and the eggs and often young were left
to die. It was only through the efforts of the
National Audubon Society that this slaughter
was stopped but not until one of their
wardens was killed by these feather pirates
while protecting the birds in a rookery.
Today the birds have made a remarkable
recovery and we find them nesting all the
way up our coast to Maine.
The other white egret you'll find stalking
the shores of Fire Island is the common or
American egret. This almost three -foot bird
is twice the height of the smaller snowy egret
and stands out like a giant along the shore or
in the marsh. It, too, is an expert fisherman
and has the added advantage of an extra long
neck to reach out to catch the small fish three
Paul Stoutenburgh is a retired educator ana
a former naturalist for the National Park
Service. He writes a column called "Focus
on Nature" for eastern Long Island
Newspapers.
to four feet away. Both of these white egrets
we've been talking about are easily
recognized when flying. Their wing beat is
slower than that of the gull and of course,
they are entirely white while the gulls have
their black and gray markings.
It's interesting to note here that though both
stalk fish in the same general area, they do
not compete with each other. The reason is
obvious, the American egret with its extra
long legs and long neck forages in deeper
water while the snowy is restricted to the
shallows. Each fits into its own special
niche.
Once you have the two white egrets
identified in your mind, you'll want to
recognize the other two waders we see along
our shores and marshes. Both are easily
recognized. One is a trifle larger than the
American egret [over three feet high] but its
color is dark blue -gray. This is the great
blue heron. Of all the birds that exist on our
shores, this bird is the most wary and will
leap into flight whenever you approach.
Because of its height and remarkable vision,
it can spot an intruder at great distances.
All the birds we've mentioned so far do not
nest on Fire Island but are merely transients
on their long migration south or are non -
breeding birds that have not as yet become
sexually active.
The great blue heron will eat anything from
a small flounder to a two -foot squirming eel
or a small killie that happens to cross its
path. The flounder is something to see being
swallowed and I've often chuckled as I've
watched that flat fish being worked down the
long thin neck of the great blue heron. Only
after many gulps and contortions does it get
it down.
Our other heron is the small green heron.
This one nests on Fire Island. Often you'll
see it flying low, to and from the heavy
brush cover so predominant in our area. it's
a small bird about the size of a common
pigeon but with long legs and a long bill. Its
color is dark gray but up close you'll see a
rusty striped breast. It usually builds its nest
in the scrub pine throughout the length of
Fire Island.
There are other occasional visitors in the
egret and heron families but these four are
the most common and easiest to recognize.
The big American egret and its smaller
counterpart, the snowy, the great blue heron
and the smaller green heron make up our so-
called wading birds. Get to know these
interesting shoreline birds. Early morning
and early evening are the beat times to see
them. They are just one of the many bits of
the natural world that make Fire Island one
of the most wonderful places in the world to
visit.
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Patchogue Ferry Sayville Ferry
Saturday 4:50 p.m. Saturday 4:15 pm.
Sunday 7:15 pm. Sunday 6:40 p.m.
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