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August 23, 2001 - Feathered friends from CanadaThe Suffolk Times • August 23, 2001 Feathered friends rom uanada Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh The ruby- throated hummingbird is the only species of hummingbird we have here in the East. It makes its nest out of plant fiber and spider webs and then attaches lichens to the outside so that it appears to be part of the tree. LAST WEEK WE TOLD OF OUR salmon fishing trip to Canada. This week we'll tell you about some of the birds we saw around camp while we were there. There was .a family of merlin (hawks) fledged and begging for food from their par - ents high in the FOCUS trees around the ON camp the day we arrived. During NATURE our entire stay by Paul we would see Stoutenburgh them calling for food up and down the river. We see this falcon occasionally during the winter hunting for mice and small birds here on the East End. Another visitor we see under our bird feeders only in the winter, the white - throated sparrow, was also feed- ing its young on the fence railing of the camp right where we sat. Black - and -white warblers were spotted and I'm sure they had nested nearby. The hummingbird feeder that hangs on the verandah attracted a pair of those delightful little ruby- throated hum- mingbirds, and down along the water's edge I saw a spotted sandpiper. It, too, would probably have nested along the edge of the river. There was a group of merganser ducks, sheldrake, that were scurrying across the water chasing young salmon and working their way into the water's edge, getting some tadpoles. (When we arrived the tadpoles were just get- we they had turned into tiny toads and were hopping onto the land where they will spend the rest of the year.) This family of aggressive diving ducks, the mergansers, was always on the go. When first spotted there were 16 counting the mother. Another day we would see 19 total and the guide told us they sometimes collect young from other families. What 'a sight to see the 19 all in a line heading down the river. This duck is seen on Long Island only after it has raised its brood up north. We never see the young here. Up and down the river a few gulls would patrol along with kingfishers. Later on we would hear the crows and ravens and could easily tell the differ- ence by the coarse voice of the raven. Chickadees would call in the pines, busily collecting insects for their young. (I only wish you readers could hear the recorded songs of the birds in the background as Paul dictates his article on tape. I live it all over again as these sounds come back to me while typing it into the computer back home. — Barbara) We were always on the lookout for birds. One day while I was busy fish- ing downriver, Barbara's sharp eyes saw a white spot high up in the pines. Putting the glasses on it, we found it to be a bald eagle. We were told it had one young that hung around with it and when the young was there you could hear i screaming for its share of the morning meal. There are also ospreys that fly up and down the river but we weren't able to spot one while we were there. Barbara spent some of her time read- ing a new book called, "Return of the Osprey," by David Gessner, which made her even more eager to spot one on the river, but no luck. Even in the wildest areas on the river we'd see a familiar robin redbreast. Usually we think of these members of the thrush family in our more suburban back -yard areas, but no, here was a pair that was eniovine the soli- tude of the river just as we were. One evening when I was fishing and we were just about ready to return to camp, a long songster started to call. I wondered who would be listening to that distant call. It reminded me of people sometimes trying to be heard. Time out from fishing As we sat on the long verandah in the afternoon reading books and checking our field guides, a busy little red squirrel would run back and forth along the railing edge collecting food, I imagine, for the winter. In the eaves of the building we could see where barn swallows had built their nests. Now they were all fledged and off on their own. Often during the evening bats would zoom in and pick up an insect that had been attracted by the light. They flew on silent wings and only a flickering shadow told us they were there. On one occasion while fishing we saw a salmon jump clear out of the water. He looked to me to be awfully big, but I was told it was only a five - or six - pounder. Some salmon in the river go up to 40 pounds. You can't keep any of the big ones. I was ho in to hook into just one and when I fins ly did it broke water once and then made a big swinging arc and let go. We weren't disappointed, though, [disavveared cause we'd give it another try other day and hope for the best. On our way home that night we otted a huge beaver exploring a log the river's edge. I was surprised to e how big it was and how quickly it into the water as we No matter where you go or what >u do there are always those rare ,ats that await you, and I must end i telling you a story of the little hun ingbird that almost wasn't. On one of those wonderful lazy ternoons when we were doing prac tically nothing but enjoying ourselves on the big wide verandah, a humming- bird came in and tried to make its way out through a skylight. Now this is an open porch and the bird could vevy well have dropped down lower and just gone out, but something attracted it to the skylight. We watched it for some time and then lost interest in it as it kept buzzing around trying to get out. Suddenly my eye caught this lovely little bird slowly drifting down, down. down until it landed softiv on happened we didn't know, so I went over and picked it up, amazed to see ii was entrapped in spider webs. Barbara took it to the kitchen where Joyce, one of the ladies at the camp, took a pair of scissors and cut the bundle of spider webs that com- pletely tied the two tiny little feet together. She also removed a heavy strand of webs that was completely tied around its little neck like a scarf. All that had interfered with the bird's flight. Can you imagine spider webs doing in a hummingbird? I had read about it in books but didn't believe it until now, after I actually saw it. So we let it go and it promptly flew up to the skylight right into another big web and proceeded to get itself entangled once more. This time it flut- tered down to a tree nearby, where it hung upside -down, as the spider webs had caught on the bark of the tree. Barbara detached it from the tree very carefully and untangled its feet, wings and neck once more. This time we took the tiny bird out on the lawn and set it in a small tree, where it stayed for about an hour, trying to regain its strength. When we checked on it later we saw it fly to the top of a big pine, hopefully having learned its lesson of deadly spider webs. Next morning at breakfast we looked out the window and there was our little female hummingbird, bobbing up and down in what we felt was a "Thank you for your help. I'm okay now." The last we saw of her she was feeding along with the male at the sugar -water feeder on the verandah.