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December 12, 2002 - The grand glorious gannetFhe Suffolk Times • December 12, 2002 RUTH, A FRIEND OF OURS, called a week or so ago to tell us about a win- ter walk she and. her husband had taken at the county park at the end of Orient Point. The entrance to the area is opposite the ferry terminal. Some o you can remember the huge Orient Point Hotel that was there years ago. It was the highlight for vacationers until tightening government regula- tions and overburdening maintenance caused it to be torn down. Back to our walk with Ruth and her husband. Besides the sea ducks they were seeing, like scoters and oldsquaws and mergansers, they had the thrill of watching a group of northern gannets feeding in the gut. Gannets are magnif- icent birds with six -foot wingspans. They are an all -white bird with wings tipped in black. They are birds of the ocean but occasionally, when fish are found in the bays and Sound, they'll come in to fish and, like gulls, once good fishing is found others soon join in to en* y the spoils of the day. - The northern gannet spends the win- ter months fishing along the eastern seaboard almost as far south as Florida. We often get them on our Christmas bird counts, sometimes at Orient but more likely at Montauk. Montauk, remember, juts out much far- ther into the ocean than Orient. In last year's Montauk Bird Count, 6,223 northern gannets were seen, the second highest total ever recorded in that area. Gannets are somewhat cigar— shaped, shaped, only much more streamlined. They have a large pointed bill that blends in with the head and then the body tapers off to the tail, so when seen from a distance they look point- ed at each end. They dive for fish from 50 to 60 fee, up in the air, pumping their way dowr with their wings until they are just about ready to enter the water. Then, wings pulled back, they drop into the water like a bullet and swim with thei wings and big feet in pursuit of what- ever is there to eat. It could be a mackerel or possibly a herring, squid or a bunker, whatever swims in schools near the surface of the water, The and, lorious gannet When springtime comes the gannets head north, up to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. There they nest on steep rock islands. Many years ago, when our family spent the summer camping through that area, one of the most memorable stops was Perce at the eastern tip of the Gaspe Peninsula. As we dropped down into the quiet lit- tle village of Perce on a Sunday morning we could hear the church bells ring- ing. How could one forget such a sight and sound? We set up camp opposite the great Perce rock and just two miles off shore was the island of Bonaventure, home to the second - largest ree mg colony of gannets in the world. There were literally thousands of birds on the 250 -foot cliffs of that island. I had the privilege of taking a boat out to the island and being left there for the day while Barbara staye with the kids back at camp. What a dream world that was. I sat down while these magnificent birds flew all about me. They would glide within six feet of my head. It was - unbelievable. I watched them at their nests as they squabbled among them- selves and fought off any gannet intruder that happened to walk too close to their nest. Some would per- form a courtship ritual by putting their beaks together and raising their heads skyward. It was a day I will always remember. Gannets mate for life and come back to the same nest every year, just like our ospreys. They have only one egg and therefore it is most important that it be fledged. The young are gray - fluffed when first hatched and by the time they are fledged they are brown 'sprinkled with white, something like our young night herons. It will be four or five years before their final molt, when they acquire the sleek look of the all -white adult with its black wing tips that make them so handsome and easy to identify. The following shows that if a person is observant he or she can get a lot more Tun out of Life. So it was with Larry, who called me to say he had 50 0 100 cedar waxwings in his back rard. To me that's a large number of vaxwings. Usually you only see them n flocks of 10 or 20. What had drawn hem to Larry's yard was that intru- ive invading vine called bittersweet. Ve're starting to see it everywhere. It is most noticeable now because its leaves are gone and we can see its clusters of orange -red berries. It's these berries that attract the birds. ine oernes pass through their digestive system and are passed out along the way with their own little bag of fertilizer, so you can see why we find bittersweet coming up in our gardens and hedgerows and, in Larry's case, growing to the top of his trees in his back yard. It's not often we see these handsome birds, so Barbara and I were soon off to see Larry's cedar waxwings. It was in the late afternoon, when the winter sun occasionally takes on that special glow and enhances the countryside. When we arrived, true -to Larry's word there must have been 50 or more cedar waxwings in the tops of the trees. Having fed all day on the bitter- sweet berries, they were fully satisfied and were now basking in that wonder- ful late- afternoon sun. What a sight to see! These cedar waxwings have been known to overindulge in some berries, especially when they have fermented, and they end up drunk on the ground, stumbling around, and are at that point even able to be picked up and handled. I Times /Review photos by Paul Stoutenburgh Gannets are occasionally seen In our Sound and bays diving and fishing for mackerel, herring, squid, bunkers or whatever the season produces. They are completely white with black - tipped wings, and have a six -foot wing span. At right: Gannets nesting on Bonaventure Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. made birds dazzle you with their black mask, tufted headdress and warm brown color. To add a little sparkle to their coloring, they have minute, red waxy droplets on the ends of their sec- ondary wing feathers, which gives them their name. Then at the very extreme end of the tail you'll see a yellow band. Something interesting about these yellow feathers in the tail is that when the birds eat certain col- ored berries their tail feathers will change from yellow to an orange -red. It reminds me about something I read one time: In a zoo, in order to keep the color in some of the birds, they feed them ground -up carrots. It seems to enhance their color. Let's go back to the name of the bird. The name waxwing comes from the red waxy droplets on the end of the wing feathers. The "cedar" of cedar waxwing comes from the berries of the red cedar they love, which is also a good place to look for these birds. Look for them around any of your ornamental plantings that have berries. One of the interesting things you will hear about cedar waxwings is their sociability. Many people have observed these birds feeding on berries or on blossom petals of trees such as the apple, plum, peach, etc. One bird picks off a petal and passes it to another bird, probably as part of the courtship routine. It is sort of a dance. The bird passes the petal to the other bird and steps aside. The other bird steps over and passes it back and so it goes, not just two or three times but more like 12 or 15 times before they give it up. There is another interesting behav- ior people have observed when a group of cedar waxwings lines up on a limb in a berry tree, but only one can reach the berries. That one will pick a berry and pass it on to the next one, who passes it on, and so on, until one of them eats the berry and then it starts over. This continues until they all get some of the berries. An unusual bit of bird behavior. Another interesting aspect of their feeding habits is that they will find a limb where the sap is flowing. Here they take turns sipping the sweet fluid, often coming back time and again. We've seen this happen where the bird actually hung upside down to catch the dripping sap. So here is a bird worth looking for, not only for his trim, beautiful body shape and color but also for the sheer joy of knowing you have discovered one of nature's true gems of the bird world.