01 *RESCAN November 22, 1979 - SEEING FALL AGAIN:Page-16 November 22, 1979
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6 F, ESE—These handsome white geese with black wing tips are occasionally seen over Long Island,
;tit
he or concentration can be viewed at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia in
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
ago. I remembered well their migration
and rnarveled at their accomplishment,
although but the weight of a feather. Yet
they still had a long way In go Georgia,
Florida, Texas and Sono tcrnss the Gulf of
Mexico to Yucatan.
Whenever the name Chincoteague in
Virginia is heard, most people relate it to
wild ponies and truly their evidence was
everywhere. We often saw them grazing
out in the marshes or along the side of the
road. 'They're rugged 5llle animals and
have adapted well to the sparse dune
marsh area. They paid little attention 10 us
as we traveled along the roadside, for
theirs is a life spent gleaning a sparse
living from the land. Each year the local
fire department conies across the bay and
rounds up the surplus of the herd. These
are then driven hack with much fanfare
across the bay to a public auction where
they are sold to the highest bidder. This
profitable endeavor has made the Chinco-
teague Fire Department one of the most
outstanding organizations of its kind in the
country..
But we came south to experience a rare
treat in wild fowl migration. This was the
Nrj+.'f' nbe'r
1-_._- >: r a
1 kit, t'o11 yv, 1r•‘•d l0 1,: 111 IT with the
:•;i: =un::° 11 11. IUV wife, llarl,ara and I did
cd cool.: ,vo look;1,;hort vac, liondown
r•dslo 0 ..li,rlc•. of I'vl;o't'la11d and
� ir;!i 11ia. I•';dl tv. „, in its prime and the
ri,lmr of Iltc trees reminderl us of it few
1-1111- nl!n v.1- ),1-m on- color bore was tt its
1t::. lcmlIcularlt' impressed with
Ih1 hold color; of Ito' as),. a tree as
,1m1o0 rlott•o Mere as 0111- oak here. its
I1ee•lingered leaves took on air, many hues
of red from deep maroon lo scarlet and
them to ye11050.
Wfiell Ibe sun shone the temperature was
iu the FIN and we• felt the halm of summer.
Our northern quilted jackets were soon
shed and shirt sleeves became I.he order of
the day. Monarch butterflies danced about
on their endless journey south and my
mind wandered hack to the myriads of
Monarchs that had passed our way along
the great harrier beach just a short time
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week that was set aside to peak this great
migration and during this time the back
roads of the Cincoteague National Wildlife
Refuge were open for the public to drive
through, photograph, observe or just plain
marvel at the numbers and assortment of
wildlife and wildfowl that had congregated
here.
The snow geese with their seemingly
pure white bodies and black wing tips ht
me were the most impressive. Their
numbers overwhelmed me. We saw thou-
sands of these handsome geese flying into
the shallows behind the barrier beach.
We had been watching a flock of branl,.11
small version of a goose, in the distance
with our binoculars when we picked up the
faint ribbon of while flying in from the
ocean. We couldn't believe our eves. 1)n
they came. String upon string 01 gleaming
white on a cloudless blue sky.
Now. in lire first flock reached the
shallots. Hwy .tyre t'eplacoll by others
from above. dropping oil of Me s55 111
erratic flight like pieces of bu„ e 1111111-111,
and they :;till cl:nu' 011 1'11(1 slty W00 ality•
With birds. Soon the sl■ttlov:s mere Whitt'
tt'itlt ho ),nubbin); !;Peso. 11 11'a:< the c rt'l'n
lion of ntil,r; ids 01111 everyone wanted ill
floor. II clay Tong, ❑s wo 1111Ced from 1110.
vanlalP 1101111 111 '(00111,, t\1' 1001,1 hear
),e i015' c ),,111( ring. Here was 1111' great-
est co110Pnlralion of snow :;1'1.51' on the
eastern sea hoard.
1'11 add In the n'hiteness 1111`1,1 were
I1nndr0115' of stalely, 05(011) !15 struts.
These• grac11111 birds were once on the
point of 15,1inc'lion. but now, ■;•eausc of
good management. (hey are once again a
viable species. You can loll Elio whistler
from our mute swan by the black bill and
long straight. neck. Our common mute
swan has a knobbed orange brill wit), ,:
more curved neck and is usually bigger.
Wildfowl :Arc Everywhere
Everywhere there was wildfowl: tiny
ruddy ducks,with their straight up fails;
the common freshwater coot was every-
where; the handsome pintail with Its
almost painledfeatures; the shoveler duck
with it.s odd flat bill that never seems to
rest as it sifts through the shallows, the
black duck, weary even at the refuge,
stays its distance; the mallard with its
green head and while collar, the tiny
black- and -white bufflehead that we see in
our creeks right today; the gadwall that
looks so much like the black duck from a
distance; the tiny teal that travel so fast at
times it's hard to follow them with your
binoculars; the colorful widgeon who
seemed to talk all the time and the
pied - billed grebe that proved to he the
comic of the day. 'These, plus others, kept
our glasses busy and our cameras click-
ing.
The little pied - billed grebe. with individ-
ual webbed toes in contrast to a duck's
webbed foot, seemed to want to show off in
front of us. After feeding on the bottom it
would pop up in front of us. look about, and
them simply submerge itself right in front
of us as if it had just collapsed. It was like
letting air out of a hall, first its back would
disappear, then the head and tail. No dive.
,lust a disappearing act in front of you. 11
was so amazing I o see you had to witness it
several times before you'd believe it
l:rehe•s Disappearing, Act
Most ducks make quite a splash or ripple
when they dive. Their body seems 1u „o op,
then the head down and the ripples IBM,'
away from where it went under. Not this
fellow. He was the originator of "now you
see it -- now you don't."
The whole area of this nearly 10.000- acre
refuge lies behind the great barrier beach
that runs the entire length of our eastern
seaboard and is under the management of
the Fish and Wildlife Service. 'Their
philosophy, which i support 100 per cent. is
that on their refuges the wildlife come first
and people second. It makes sense that
(here should be some areas in this great
country of ours that wildlife, who were
here long before man, should have a place
to call their own.
I was particularly glad to sae a ten -mile
stretch of beach that was off limits to any
kind of mechanized vehicles. Somehow
this world seems to have been taken over
by the wheel, and it was nice to find out
there were still some places you could go
where there would be no wheel tracks.
Perhaps we were overwhelmed by the
whole area, hut I couldn't help t•uI think no
(natter who you were or what your
background if you had been standing with
us and watched those huge flocks of snow
white geese filtering into the great shal-
lows of Chincoteague you loo would have
been impressed by this spectacle of the
natural world.