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Jul 29, 1999 - Seeing signs of summer slip-sliding awayGA • The Suffolk Times • July 29, 1999 Seeing signs of summer slip - sliding away It's hard to believe how fast our sum- mer is slipping away. If you look close- ly you will see signs everywhere. I see it in the young robins on the lawn and the chickadees and woodpeckers and spar- rows and other young birds that are well on their way to making it on their own. Young terns nesting on our beach- es have passed the critical state of hatching and Focus beg for food as the adults bring ON in shiny silvery NATURE fish for them to eat. by Paul Then just the Stoutenburgh other day I saw my first yellowlegs return to our creek from its rendezvous up north. This noisy shorebird has already been up to the Arctic tundra, laid its clutch of mot- tled eggs, hatched its young and sent them on their way. The one I saw was on its way south where it will spend the winter on some sandy beach or mud flat somewhere in the Caribbean or even further south into South America. Not only did I see this handsome shore- bird in our local creek but later out in the bay saw small flocks of "peeps," sparrow -sized shorebirds flying ,low over the water, also heading south. Somewhere along their flight they will find the appropriate feeding grounds to settle in and refuel their tiny bodies in anticipation of the next leg of their journey to their wintering grounds. The question always arises, "Why do they travel so far when they-could pos- sibly get the same results in, say, south- ern Florida ?" We're not entirely sure but it goes back, perhaps, to when our land formations were entirely different and the climate changed as the great glaciers dominated our world. This, along with the overriding fact that in the winter up north there would be no insects, worms or other forms of food available, makes sense of why these mi- grants head south. Then there's the overabundance of insects hatching out in the soggy water - soaked tundra, coupled with the longest days of daylight, that makes it an ideal place to nest and rear their young. I've read accounts of how the mosquitoes, flies and other buzzing insects were so thick that one literally breathed insects and the only salvation was to cover up with netting. I've also heard that these swarms of insects are so bad that the caribou are literally dri- ven mad by their presence if they can't get relief. This superabundance of food and long daylight hours is why these birds can reproduce and fledge their young so quickly. Once this is accom- plished they are on their way back down south and that's just what I saw the other day when I watched that gal- lant yellowlegs flying in our creek and calling its familiar alarm call. Like the little peeps I mentioned above, the yel- lowlegs was looking for a mud flat or beach to refuel on. Once it has built up its reserve of fat, it will again be off on its long journey south. Another sign of the passing season is the dark schools of bunker or men- haden that use our shal- low -water creeks and bays as nursery areas. Once again we see the impor- tance of these wetland areas. Here these three - quarter -of -an -inch baby menhaden or bunkers, as the locals would call them, will feed with open mouths all summer long. As they swim they filter the "soup" of our local waters that contains a rich broth of plankton that acts . as their food supply. That is why when the water is clean and beautiful the marine scientists shake their heads for they know there is little food value in clean water. It's the murky water with its plants and animals and sediment they look for. It's there the nutrients are hidden. These dense "schools," now about three feet in diameter, are for protec- tion from predators. In numbers there is safety. The same strategy is used by birds that fly in tight groups. The flut- tering mass of wings or in the case of fish, the flashing sides of hundreds of fish, confuse the predator. He may strike at the mass and it will break up, usually with little result. Then they will regroup and continue on their way. I have often snorkeled alongside these flashing schools of bunkers and it is a sight to behold. Hundreds of these small silvery fish all seem to move as one. If you make a sudden move towards them, they respond en masse, all the time swimming with their mouths open, filtering the water through their sieve -laden gills. The adult menhaden spawn off shore, their large globular egg masses floating. After only a few days of in- cubation they hatch and head for the All through their lives they are the target of every predator that swims, from the snapper blues in the summer to the jumbo blues, striper and weak- fish who will prey on them. They are constantly harassed but what really has taken its toll are the commercial fishing boats that worked the Sound and bays and ocean with their long nets and spot- ter planes. So efficient did they become that they actually overfished the species. At one time menhaden were the No. 1 commercial fish in dollar value along the entire eastern seaboard. Today it's a mere trickle of what it once was. Another sign of how our summer is slipping away are the long broken lines of blackbirds heading to roost each late afternoon. I group all the purple grack- les, starlings, redwings, and cowbirds into this easily characterized word, black- bird.. Most have reared their young and are now moving about in small groups, gleaning the fields and lawns of anything that looks appetizing, be it seed, bug or a mere crumb left by a picnicker. These opportunists are there to cash in on them. Their numbers outrank all other birds in our area. They dominate the bird world wherever you look. Most will stay around throughout the summer, fattening up, the young learning the rules of sur- vival, all in preparation for their all important migra- tion south in the fall. In the meantime, they'll blend into larger and larger groups and as the food becomes scarcer they become more and more of a threat to the farmer whether he is a grape grow- er, an apple grower or our local veg- etable grower. Flocks of these black- birds can devastate a farmer's hard - grown crops. All sorts of devices have been tried to scare these robbers away but few work successfully over th 1 Th bi h Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh This yellowlegs was seen last week in our local creek, where it stopped to refuel on its way south. It will spend the winter In the Caribbean or South America. it has already hatched its young on the fur north tundra and is now heading for its wintering grounds. i r No" lw 11 wwri V% M wr.W �..� ■ � &..vv� vHVn 75 years ago July 25, 1924 Air mall: Miss Beatrice Young received the first letter to arrive in Mattituck by airplane post since the inauguration of the coast -to -coast service. The letter came from her uncle in Los Angeles, Calif., and made the trip during the first week of the service. It bore stamps to the amount of 24 cents. Shelter Island news: Who said that taxi drivers had no hearts? The one who said it evidently did not know the taxi drivers of Shelter Island, otherwise such a remark would never have been made. Our drivers have shown that they not only have hearts, but have very large ones. On Tuesday of last week Messrs. Ronne, Ryder and Loper, accompanied by a kind- hearted guest of Oxford Hall, trimmed up their metal steeds with flags and took the inmates of the Fresh Air Home for a drive about the island, thereby giving much pleasure to the adults, and delight to the children. 50 year: ago July 29, 1949 Mattituck firm gets hospital bid: Construction of the Central Suffolk Hospital, long delayed by excessive building and supply costs, probably will be started within the next two . weeks, officials of the Riverhead Hospital Association said yesterday. The lowest of the five bids received and opened last Friday is well within the means of the association. The Mattituck firm of Harold R. Reeve and Sons was the low bidder on the contract with a proposal of $665,906, it was shallower waters of our creeks and bays where they'll grow until fall to the length of about three to four inches. Then as the water cools, they'll move off shore. revealed Friday, evening when bids were opened at a joint meeting of the executive and building committees of the asso- ciation in the Riverhead Town Hall. 25 years ago July 25, 1974 Happy birthday, Times: [Advertisement] This is The Suffolk Times. Published in the same town and often writing about the same families for 117 years. It has only had seven editors in that period and as far as can be learned has never missed an issue. Times change — even The Suffolk Times. From a stan- dard- sized, four -page paper it has become a 48- to 52 -page tabloid with a weekly circulation that in the last-five years alone has increased from 2,000 to over 7,000 paid. In place of the five or six blurred photographs that used to puzzle our readers, it now carries up to 40 photos with clear detail as the result of the new offset printing process. We believe The Suffolk Times, with the largest paid circula- tion on the North Fork and Shelter Island, offers the business man and business woman an ideal medium to advertise their goods and services to our circulation area. We also recommend to those interested in keeping up with The Times* a subscription for home delivery for 52 weeks for only $8. * The Suffolk Times, that is. On Thursdays we outsell The New York Times on the North Fork — also Newsday, The News and the Long Island Press.... We bet they are glad we only publish once a week! e ong run. a pro %, as gotten so bad that netting is now an integral part of grape growing. All these added de- vices to keep the birds away add to the rising cost of bring- ing in the crop. As the day progresses the blackbirds, now full from their gleaning of the countryside, gather together to roost. It's this gathering I spoke of earli- er. Usually they'll pick an iso- lated spot away from where people travel. The roost I'm most familiar with, and I'm sure there are others throughout the East End, is the one down by New Suffolk in a huge phragmites marsh. I've watched these blackbirds funnel in by the thousands for over an hour, each one talking and squab- bling as it spirals down. When I see their broken lines at this time of the year it tells me our summer is slipping away.