December 15, 1994 - Keep an Eye Out for East End ExoticaDecember 15, 1994 • The Suffolk Times • 7A
Keep an Eye Out for East End Exotica
By Paul Stoutenburgh
A telephone call from a gracious
woman in Greenport told of having seen
one of the oddities that crop up every
once in a while in our area. Since these
are not natural occurrences they are usual-
ly worth investigating. She told of this big
bird that was sitting across the creek on a
neighbor's railing and if I could come
right over it probably would stay there for
it had been around for some time. I went
through the various
Focus on birds 1 thought it
might be: A pheas-
Nature ant? "Much bigger
than that!" A
turkey? "No, it has
a long tail." She asked if it could be a pea-
cock. Well, there is always that chance, I
said, but I told her it would be the first I
had ever seen wandering about here on
our East End.
A few directions over the phone and
Barbara and I were soon off to investi-
gate. We pulled up to a lovely home on
the east side of Gull Pond where we were
greeted by an enthusiastic "It's still there.
You're lucky!" Walking around the home
and up on the deck, she pointed to where I could see a
big bird sitting on a railing just as she had said. My
binoculars revealed a handsome, blue - headed peacock
that seemed to reign over the area as if he owned the
place. This was a first for me. I had to get closer.
And so, with a few more directions, we were soon
off, skirting around the creek to where I hoped the bird
was still resting. By some careful stalking and crawling
along the side of the house, I was able to get up close
so that the peacock was just across the patio from me.
Slowly, I raised myself with the camera at eye level
and saw through the viewfinder this most elegant, blue
peacock. I was able to get one picture of it just before it
decided to take off and run for cover.
Later, I spoke to someone else who lived nearby and
he said it had been around for some time, probably an
escapee from someone's private collection. This often
happens, as you will remember from some of the fol-
lowing stories:
Photo by Paul Sioulenburgh
WILD PEACOCK ? —We never cease to marvel at what you can see out-
side your window.
Black Swans
Some time ago I was called about a pair of black
swans that were in front of a home on Nassau Point. I
hadn't seen black swans since we had been in New
Zealand where we saw literally hundreds of them on
Lake Forsyth. Sure enough, when I went down to
where they were to be, there they were. Now where did
these strange and exotic swans come from? Again, it
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couldn't be that they just flew in from New Zealand.
More likely they, too, had escaped from someone's col-
lection, or like so many birds and animals were just let
go after the owners became tired of them. This is why
we see white ducks and other unusuals in our creeks
and ponds.
A likely story of these misfits is that someone buys
the "cute little ducklings" for Easter and when the chil-
dren grow tired of them or they grow up and
become a little messy — what to do with them?
Well, just go down to the lake or creek and let
them go. Usually this is just another way of end-
ing their lives because outside in the natural world f
the story of survival is built on experience; those
white ducks soon would succumb to a fox or a
hunting owl or frozen water in the winter and pos-
sibly die of starvation.
Our neighbor told us of an unusual bird at his
feeder one day. Upon investigating we found it
to be a Brazilian cardinal feeding with our northern
cardinal, chickadees and bluejays. It stayed around for
two or three weeks until the bitter months of January
and February set in. Again, it probably expired
because of its being out of its element. It was a hand-
some, red - and - white - and -black bird that I'm sure was
someone's caged bird that somehow escaped into the
wild.
Probably the most notorious of these exotics are the
ul
t
common blue and green parakeets that
people purchase at a pet shop. Friends of
ours called up one day and said that one
had flown into their open van. `Did we
want it? Sure enough, we took it and this
one made it for we kept it in the house
where it was used to being fed and taken
care of.
A few years ago a pair of Tibetan geese
were reported on Plum Island, feeding
away with the common geese on the
lawns about the area. Now here was a real
traveler and there is always that rare pos-
sibility that these birds flew in from afar
but, more likely, seeing there were two of
them, it was surmised that they, too, came
from someone's collection. The interest-
ing thing about the demise of one of them
was that it was shot legally during the
hunting season as it came into a cornfield
with decoys on the mainland.
Parakeets its the Wild
Monk parakeets are one of the escapees
that seem to have been able to make it in
the wild. These greenish parakeets have
been reported nesting as far north as
upper New York State. They build a
bulky stick nest with a tunnel entrance. It,
too, had escaped originally and because of its love of
fruit there was concern that it might be a problem to
orchard and grape growers if it multiplied. As yet this
has not come about.
One of the most unusual escapees I've ever come
across was not a bird but an animal. The call came from
a lady up on the Sound telling of a big piglike animal in
her yard. I knew of no piglike animal and so, once
again, into the car
we went to investi-
Keep your feeders gate. After a little
culprit we saw the
and always be on ul rit sure
enough, small and
he lookout for the piglike. I'd never
seen anything like it
unusual.' before but I thought
I'd seen pictures of
it somewhere. So
back to the house we went to do some research and
came up with a capybara, a native of South America
and the largest of nature's rodents. It, too, had escaped
from some collector's yard, we later found out.
It just goes to show that you can never tell what
you're going to see right outside your own home. So
keep the feeders full for our native birds and always be
on the lookout for the unusual. One's bound to show up
sooner or later.
JOHN DEERE
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