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January 07, 1993 - Annual Adventures of the Audubon Crew4A • The S4ffQlk .Times January. 7, .1.9.93 Annual Adventures of the Audubon Crew By Paul Stoutenburgh Another year and another series of Christmas bird counts have gone by. Many of you are acquainted with these counts from past reports but others, I'm sure, find it means little except that the word Audubon has something to do with birds. To refresh everyone's mind, I'd like to give you a short capsule re- view of what it means. Interested birders in over 650 indi- Focus on Nature vidual counts throughout all of North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands go out on a particular day and count every bird they see and hear from before dawn (for owls) to after dark in a 15- mile - diame- ter circle. These lists of birds are then forwarded to Audubon headquarters where they are computerized and then printed in the American Bird publica- tion. There are many counts right here on Long Island with four of them out on the East End: Quogue -Water Mill, Cen, tral Suffolk, Montauk and Orient, of which I participate in the last three. Al- though reports are still coming in, the total species of birds seen on these counts are as follows: Quogue -Water Mill 108, Central Suffolk 124, Montauk 133 and Orient 101. Much has to do with the weather on the count day and, of course, the number of eyes out there counting. There's a certain amount of real work involved in pushing through brambles, walking through deep woods, on long stretches of beaches or slogging through marshes and swamps but that is over- shadowed by the hopes of seeing a spe- cial species of bird or just enjoying the companionship of a fellow birder. Lost Boots in Swamp To give you just an inkling of some of the adventures of these counts I'd like to relate an amusing episode I encountered when I was walking through the head- waters of a freshwater swamp on the Central Suffolk count. As I walked across this frozen, wet area I could feel the ground giving way under me. To es- cape this I started to walk faster to get to the dry area ahead. This only added to the problem and I soon found my right foot breaking through the frozen crust and being held firmly by the black mud of the swamp. When I tried to pull my foot out my boot remained stuck in the mud and I took the next step with my new red Christmas socks in the soft, frozen mud. To make matters worse I tried to move the other foot and again the foot came out but my forward mo- tion was already under way and now I had finally made it to dry land without any boots. How I laughed at myself! What a sight I was, sitting high and dry, my boots eight feet away in the mud. I fashioned a long stick and pro- ceeded to fish out my boots, which eventually I retrieved. Needless to say, I took my muddy socks off and put my cold, wet feet into my still -dry boots. I rinsed my socks off in the stream, stuffed them in my pocket and was soon on my way. This all happened after we had started out at six in the morning in hopes of calling in owls. We had picked a place Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh TRICOLORED OR LOUISIANA HERON —The first time ever on any of the East End counts this neotropical heron was seen along Dune Road on the south shore. It is normally a southern bird. where we knew a great horned owl was last year and, sure enough, in the still 16- degree temperature of pre-dawn we could hear his "Hoo, hoo -oo, hoo, hoo." We then made a call like a screech owl and were able to bring in two of the lit- tle owls. One flew in and perched on a limb a mere 10 feet from us. Later we'd flush out a barn owl in a cedar thicket that has rewarded us with an owl each year. The area within the 15 -mile circle I am in on the Montauk count is Gar - diners Island, a place that at any time of the year is paradise to me. We covered the south end of the island. We again saw seals on the rocks to the north and had high hopes of finding shorebirds on the long, two -mile strip of sand that stretches out to Napeague to the south. This year we had a snowy owl atop an osprey platform that greeted us as we landed on the grass strip. Another good owl find later showed up as we worked our way through the high -tide line of that great marsh area north of Great Pond. It was a short -eared owl that's becoming harder and harder to find each year. I can remember once in the same general area we flushed five of these northern visitors. The last count I went on was the Ori- ent count, which came after New Year's, and it found 56 of us from the ages of 8 to 87 starting out before dawn with temperatures in the teens. After a day of birding, 30 of them met at our house for refreshments and tabulations of the count. After thawing out and eat- ing, the list of species is called out with the birders responding with a "Yes" or a deadly silence. The list starts off with regulars interrupted with "oohs" and "aahs" whenever a special, hard -to -find bird shows up. A phoebe (flycatcher) was found at a pond in Bay View and, of course, a cheer went up when two bluebirds were reported on Shelter Is- land. We did fairly well with hawks with a peregrine falcon topping the list found in Peconic. This king of falcons, like the osprey, was near extinction 20 years ago but since DDT and strong ef- forts of reintroducing birds into the area, they have come back surprisingly well. The party I was with was able to put turnstones and black - bellied plover (shorebirds) on our list from the tattered i sI19a. 1_0...L odmowL 82 Years Ago Jan. 7, 1911 They Gathered at James Henry's: James Henry Young, a gallant member of Peconic Lodge of Greenport, entertained in his usual style a dozen brethren at his comfortable house in Orient, New Year's Eve. There were a good number in the party, all from Greenport, with the exception of several Orient Masons and Mr. Young's son -in -law, George Hams, of Springfield, Mass. Everybody present had some good words of cheer to say, but the prin- cipal speakers were Mr. Young, Frederick H. Tasker and the Rev. H.C. Fox. Increased Fees: The announcement that the mem- bers of the Suffolk County Medical Association are to increase their fees has occasioned much comment. In many of the South Side towns the increased rates have been in force for some years. In Greenport the physicians furnish their patients with medicine which is included in the charge of either an office call or house visit. Even with the increased rate, it is much lower in Greenport than in other towns where the patient is compelled to go to a drug store and pay from 50 cents to a dollar additional for his medicine. 50 Years Ago Jan. 7, 1943 beaches of Orient State Park, thanks to the cooperation of the park superinten- dent. Looking back over my records of 40 years or more I see many changes in the bird world. Most of all, the small woodland birds have dropped off to an alarming degree. This is due to a great extent to the loss of habitat. Yet we see new birds like the cardinal, mocking- bird, titmouse, cattle egret and others that have moved into our area and, of course, probably the most visual change has been the great number of Canada geese that have moved in most recently. Our count alone found over 3,000 in the Peconic area and they are found in equal numbers on the south shore. By the way, we also found four snow geese mixed in with them. It's always an exciting day when we go on these marathon counts where the rewards far outnumber the hardships. For those interested in the variety of birds seen on the Orient count I've listed them below, all 101 of them. Red - throated loon, common loon, pied -billed grebe, homed grebe, great cormorant, double - crested cormorant, great blue heron, black - crowned night heron, mute swan, snow goose, Canada goose, black duck, mallard, northern pintail, gadwall, canvasback, ring- necked duck, greater scaup, lesser scaup, oldsquaw, black scoter, surf scoter, white - winged scoter, common goldeneye, bufflehead, hooded merganser, common merganser, red- breasted merganser, northern harrier, sharp - shinned hawk, cooper's hawk, red - tailed hawk, American kestrel, merlin, peregrine falcon, king- necked pheasant, bobwhite, black - bellied plover, greater yellowlegs, ruddy tumstone, dunhn, common snipe, American woodcock, Bonaparte's gull, ring -billed gull, herring gull, great black - backed gull, rock dove, mourning dove, eastern screech owl, great homed owl. And belted kingfisher, red- bellied woodpecker, yellow - bellied sapsucker, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, northern flicker, eastern phoebe, homed lark, blue jay, American crow, black - capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, red - breasted nuthatch, white - breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, Carolina wren, winter wren, marsh wren, golden- crowned kinglet, eastern bluebird, hermit thrush, American robin, grey catbird, northern mockingbird, brown thrasher, cedar waxwing, European starling, black - throated blue warbler, yd low -romped warbler, northern cardinal, rufous - sided towhee, American tree sparrow, field sparrow, Savannah sparrow, sharp -tailed sparrow, fox sparrow, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, white - throated sparrow, white- comwed sparrow, dark -eyed junco, snow bunting, red - winged blackbird, eastern meadowlark, brown - headed cowbird, purple finch, house finch, pine siskin, American goldfinch and house sparrow. Shorter School Days: Beginning Jan. 11, for an indefinite period, the school day in Greenport will close at 3 p.m. The eighth period will be discontinued and other afternoon classes will be cut to 40 minutes. This reduction will remain in effect until: (1) We have assurances there will be an adequate supply of fuel oil; (2) It is found possi- ble to convert our oil burner into coal; (3) Warmer weather makes it possible to resume usual school activities. This step has been taken to conserve fuel oil and to prevent shut- ting down the school. 25 Years Ago Jan. 5, 1968 New Postal Rates: Increased rates for all classes of mail except parcel post and international mail will go into effect Jan. 7. "Even with the new rates of six cents for first - class mail and 10 cents for air mail, postal service is a real bargain," Postmaster Cooper declared. Reapportionment Plan: In its last session the out- going all- Republican Suffolk Board of Supervisors approved a compromise reapportionment plan. It calls for a 15 -member board. Each of the 10 towns would be repre- sented by a resident member elected on a countywide basis and five additional members would be elected with no resi- dency requirement.