August 09, 2001 - Calls and letters from readerse Suffolk Times • August 9, 2001
Calls and letters
was from a man telling me of his'expe-
rience with those noisy birds, the blue -
jays. He said they were calling and div-
ing and screaming their heads off in
his nearby woods. He wanted to see
what was going on, so quietly he
worked his way into the woods until
he could get close enough to the
ruckus and
there, in a tree,
FQCU$ was a great
ON horned owl, the
ancient enemy
NATURE of jays and
by Paul crows.
$toutenburgh Crows usually
do more harass-
ing than blue -i
jays. They all know that this fellow, the
great horned owl, can swoop in at
night and take off with one of their
own. They are mortal enemies and will
try to chase the owl out of the territo-
ry by screaming and diving down on
him.
The great horned owl he saw might
have been a young one, for they have
long since fledged, as the adults nest in
the winter, sometimes as early as
January, February or March. Remem-
ber, their food supply is always avail-
able so they don't have to wait for the
seasons to come around. They can
nest any time of the year. If it was a
young one, it probably didn't know
the rules of hiding and was visible for
the jays so it made an easy target.
If you want to have a little fun and a
little excitement, the next time you
hear bluejays screaming or crows
making a noise in the woods, try to
sneak in and see that they're doing.
Nine times out of 10 it will be an owl
they're after. Occasionally it will be a
hawk and on rare occasions it might
even be a fox. So have a good time
stalking the woods and seeing what
adventures you can find there.
Gull awaits next meal
One of the letters this week came
from a lady whose neighbors had fed a
particular gull for years. It could
always be seen perched on their
from readers
A house wren feeding her
Times /Review photo by Barbara Stoutenburgh
rooftop. No other gull
was allowed to come
into the area. The gull
guarded its spot fero-
ciously, by driving away
any and all intruders.
Then the man stopped
feeding it and the gull
continued to hang
around. Oftentimes, it
would walk up on the
patio and look in the
door or fly up on the
roof and look down
through the skylight, t e y
trying to figure out goi
where the handout was.
Once a habit is kno
formed it's pretty hard wor
to break, and this gull a b
had a good thing going inc
and evidently wanted it
to continue. It would
leave during the day,
the neighbor said, and
that's probably when it
would find its food else-
where, but each day it
would turn up and look
for that handout that egg s .
wasn't there. kno
This story reminds S
me that when we feed
birds in the winter we
should do it on a contin-
ual basis, because after a
while they begin to rely
on the food and seeds you provide. S
I don't know exactly what's going to
happen to this gull, but it's still sitting
on the roof waiting for that handout.
Bird banders helpful
I had a call recently from a bird -
bander out in
Greenport. Bird- `...there are
banding is valuable
because it gives us things goint
an indication of there if you
increases and where t0 COI
decreases in bird
populations and
other important bits of scientific infor-
mation. Banders do it every year at
the same place at the same time so
get a true maicator of what's
ng on in the bird world.
This particular man called to let me
w that he had found a breeding
m- eating warbler. He knew it was
reeding bird because it had the
ubation atch on its breast. This
patch is an open-
ing in the feathers
that lets the eggs
of an incubating
bird come up
against its warm
body, thereby
developing the
You can see this on a bird if you
w where to look for it.
o this breedine worm- eatine war-
on out
ust know
c for them.'
bler was a rare find.
According to the John
Bull book I checked, it
has been recorded only
twice before in Suffolk
County, once in Port
Jefferson and once in
Cold Spring Harbor.
You see, there are
interesting things going
on out there if you just
know where to look for
them. Bird - banding is
an interesting sideline
to. birding. It's being
done in Greenport and
at Mashomack
Preserve on Shelter
Island and I'm sure in
other places to the
west.
Our son put up a tiny
birdhouse more for
looks than use but was
surprised to find a
house wren had taken
it over. The birdhouse
only 3 1/2 inches
square with a one -inch
hole, but nevertheless
the wren is as busy as
she can be, feeding her
family. She makes a
quick trip to the nest,
leaves her worm or
whatever is on the
menu and waits a
minute at the front of the box. Then
she leans in and brings out the little
mucous - wrapped white package of
waste from inside the nest to take
away. This not only keeps the nest
clean but also keeps any odor from
alerting some predators that there
might be life inside.
While writing this article, I had a
call from a woman who runs a local
B &B. Her guests were curious about
the big black birds they were seeing
and wondered whether they were
crows or ravens. I told her that we
very seldom have ravens in our area,
but if we did you could tell them from
the crows by their heavy bills, much
larger size and much different call. So
since we don't usually have ravens in
our area, if you see a big black noisy
bird, it's bound to be our common
crow. There's a smaller version of the
row, called the fish crow, occasionally
ound on the south side.