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March 14, 2002 - Strange sightingsSuffolk Times • March 14, 2002 trange si When was the last time I RECEIVE MANY CALLS and letters from people who have seen some- thing they'd like to report. I appreci- ate these because it lets me know there are people out there who care and the more who care about the world we live in, the better it will Focus be for all of us. ON One lady called about a NATURE vulture she had by Paul seen and wanted Stoutenburgh to know if it was a common occurrence. She was able to get up close enough to identify it by its reddish, skinlike head. It had been eating a road - killed squirrel. Vultures are not a common bird to Long Island. If you want to see them, all you have to do is go to Connecticut or New Jersey and there you're bound to see them drifting along on the thermals, looking for that unfortunate animal that's been killed or died. Vultures never prey on anything that is alive. They are carrion feed- ers, meaning that the animal must be dead before they feast on it. There are basically two kinds of vultures that we come in contact with: the black vulture, which is usually found farther south, therefore the rarer, and the turkey vulture, the more com- mon, which our caller saw. a tur hti'*Lngs ou saw vulture in these parts? Times /Review photo by Paul Stoutenburgh Count yourself lucky if you spot a turkey vulture flying on our East End. The above photo shows the skinlike head so characteristic of the vulture family. They serve a useful purpose by feasting on carrion of all sorts. We are told turkey vultures don't like to fly across water and perhaps that is one reason our island doesn't have many of them. Yet there are some that venture across to Fishers Island from Connecticut, then to Plum Island and then to our Long Island, or perhaps they might come from the mainland to our west. Whc they do arrive here, they are wel- come visitors and ones we should count ourselves lucky to see. Another call came from Jim in East Marion, who wanted to report one of the strangest visitors he'd ever seen at his bird feeder. As he tells the story, he has this low bird feeder, about two feet off the ground, which he checks each morning to see what's around. Then just the other day, to his surprise, there was a rabbit, standing on its hind feet, eating the birdseed. Now, I've never heard of that before, so there's a first from East Marion. I've had deer come to our feeders and nibble on the sunflower seeds, crows that have flown in to sample our suet feeder and, of course, the pesky raccoon who thinks he owns the back yard and everything in it and therefore claims his share of the suet. Then, o course, there's the gray squirrel, who baffles all. No matter how hard you try to outwit him, he always seems to come through for his share of the sunflower seeds. His la est maneuver is climbing a nearby tree and jumping out to where our feed- ers hang. All he has to do is hit the feeder as he jumps, so it spills some seed on the ground, then he prompt- ly feeds on it. Bob Conklin called the other day to tell me they would be installing the fish ladder again this year in Grangebel Park in Riverhead. This water ladder lets the returning alewives (a herring -like fish) get to their freshwater spawning grounds in the upper reaches of the Peconic River. Installing this fish ladder is no small job. As we watched from some distance away, a huge crane and about eight to 10 men worked the ladder into place with much pushing and pulling. It will now act as a pas- sageway to the upper level of the waterfall. What a great community project. Now the alewives can finally reach their ancestral spawning grounds without being stopped at the foot of the impassable waterfall. I also get calls about problems. Sometimes we can help and some- times we can't. An old classmate of mine called and said he had a prob- lem with seagulls dropping clams on his flat roof. Well, we should know what that's all about. Clams are pretty hard for gulls to get into and so they pick them up and drop them on a hard surface. Evidently Floyd's roof was the hard surface the gull needed to drop its clams on. Once the clams were broken open, the table was set for its meal. How to get rid of the seagulls, I don't know. My only suggestion was to paint the shape of a hawk flying on the roof in two or three places. I know they use this hawk silhouette at airports where seagulls congregate on runways. Whether it would work here I don't know. I hope so. Seeing a fox walk through your yard is a rare treat. I A student of mine from long ago called me the other day with an inter- esting story about a fox. It seems for the past year or so, he's made the acquaintance of a fox that he says almost resembles a dog by following him around waiting for his handout. He says he feeds the fox chicken wings and chicken legs and an occa- sional piece of steak, but never leaves any meat or food on the ground for fear of attracting other animals. I thought this an almost impossible story until I went down and met with him and saw the pictures of his fox. It's the most beautiful fox you can imagine: big bushy tail, sharp upright ears, and alert as a wild animal can be. Actually the reason he called me is that his fox has wandered into the nearby neighbors' yards and some of them were concerned that the fox might attack their children, but this has never occurred before. And so, we went over and met with one of the neighbors, who is an understanding person, and I ried to assure him that seeing a fox walk through your yard was a rare treat, something like the sight- ing of a deer. They've only seen the one ox around, so they're not sure whether there is a pair off in the nearby woods or what. Time will tell as springtime arrives and the young ones are born. Foxes have territories of a half -mile to a mile in diameter. They mark their territory by drop- pings and urine samples. This tells the other fox, "Keep out, this is my hunting ground." Foxes are actually protected by law except in certain seasons and then by permit only. Still, the hunters complain that foxes eat all the pheas- ants and rabbits, squirrels and other game that they want to shoot. True, they do take some of these, but by and large the majority of their food is mice, voles, rats, etc. (that is, unless Mr. Fox is fed steak and chicken wings). Whether or not we convinced the neighbor that the fox should do no harm to humans I can't tell, but it is an interesting story and one I verified the other day when I met with that student of mine from long ago.