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January 15, 1998 - A Winter Walk on the Sound Shore'4A • The Suffolk Times • January 15, 1998 A Winter Walk on the Sound Shore With the good weather we've had this past week, Barbara and I headed for the Sound for our annual four -mile hike. There wasn't a breath of wind, leaving the usually turbulent Sound as flat as glass. All along our walk we could plain- ly see red- breast- ed mergansers, goldeneyes, old- Focus squaw and scoters on along with occa- sional loons. How Nature easy it was to spot them on the mir- by Paul rored water, com- gtoutenburgh pared to the usual roughness of the Sound. Already many of the ducks were paired off and those that weren't were trying to win over a mate or keep their prize from being stolen away. Much squabbling and thrashing about by the males told of the rivalry and big stakes that were being contested. And to think this showing off and challenging goes on for months to come as they eventually work their way up to their nesting grounds to the far north in the spring. It almost wears me out just thinking about it. Yet there were very few ducks com- pared to the thousands seen 40 or 50 years ago in the Sound. Then great rafts of scoters could be seen feeding off the beaches of Mattituck and Riverhead. There was a regular following of duck hunters who would launch their boats from the beach to fan out in a line to inter- cept the early- morning flight of these ducks, locally called "coots." It was a wild and often wet adventure, getting in and out of the boats as the usual cold northwest wind stirred up the Sound. Duck Have the Advantage Once launched, there was the task of rowing out into position and anchoring in the proper location along the line. If you were lucky and hadn't taken on too much water, you could lie down in the bottom of your boat, where you'd be partially hidden from the ducks moving through. Then, with frozen fingers and usually wet gear and a continually rock- ing boat, you'd try your best to hit one of those fast - moving targets as they headed up the Sound. There was much banging away and very little luck, for the odds were all in favor of the ducks. As we walked along the beach there were many footprints of people along with their dogs. Evidently many others had taken advantage of the good weath- er to stretch their legs. About a mile along our journey the footprints became stones up to fist size that left their obvi- ous trails in the sands as they rolled down the bank and onto the beach. The only large one we saw was a chunk of clay the size of a wheelbarrow that had rolled, jumped and hopped along the sand as it headed to the water's edge. It must have weighed at least 200 pounds. The beach for miles was lined with slipper shells, or boat shells, as some call seen — yes, I mean the largest I've ever seen. This track was as large as one made by our 1- year -old cow. I surely would like to have seen that fellow, for he must have been a huge buck and I'm sure had an equally large rack. If we looked closely on the drier upper beach we could see tiny tracks of mice. They must beachcomb also, but I wondered what they find to eat. They surely must fall prey to hunt- ing owls on this open sand. I'm always fascinated with how wind creates patterns in the sand and how it sifts the sand to produce layers of colors. At one place there was the dark - colored garnet (purple) sand and the magnetite (black) sand that had built up into fasci- nating patterns. How this occurs through wind or water action is interesting. We are told the quartz (light - colored) sand is lighter in weight and therefore is washed away by wind or sand action, leaving the heavier garnet and magnetite behind that produces those wonderful colored pat- terns we're all familiar with along our beaches. We walked beneath 60- to 80 -foot- high banks that are continually being eroded. Part of this ongoing cycle is the sliding and rolling down of sand and stones, large and small. We once saw where a car -sized boulder had rolled out of the cliff and found its resting place on the beach. Today we saw only small Suffolk Times photo OLDSQUAW —These handsome ducks nest in the far nor our Sound and bays during the winter. On calm days you hear them talking among themselves with their wild and wot TWIN FORKS yY,: !di C ,SX 3` W., ;M:5 b in the Township of Southold $ 25 + Tax a Month Call now and receive 734 -2722 the first month FREE! them. They are even called quarter decks by others. It gave the windrow of shells a purplish cast as far as the eye could see. Why so many? Could it be they were frozen during a cold spell at low tide when they were exposed? Later they'd drop off and be washed ashore with baby mussels that had met the same fate. Now the gulls were feeding on them. Our day was crystal clear, so we could see the white markings of buildings along the Connecticut shore telling of man's housing and industry. But there was an ominous brown layer of haze lying along that distant shore. Pollution? What else could it be? Here we basked alongside sparkling clear water with clean, fresh air about us and just across the Sound there appeared to be an unhealthy looking smog. It gave one an odd feeling, for all there had to be was a is not always perfect. All along our way were colored, storm - tossed lobster buoys that had bro- ken away from their pots. Some were even iridescent colors. Many had New York State registration numbers while others came all the way across the Sound from Connecticut. Years ago lobster pot buoys were made of wood. I still have a nice collection of them. Today plastics of all sorts have taken over and wooden buoys are a thing of the past. A sign of the times. Like lobster buoys, the world is changing and will continue to change, but one thing that won't change is "the beach." Yes, it may have more clutter along its shores but the beach itself will always be there in one form or another. Thank goodness we here on the North Fork still have miles and miles of Sound beach to walk on and enjoy. Orient Bird Count Tally The following is a list of specie spotted at the Orient Christmas Bird Count. Underlines denote species unusual to our area. Common Loon, Red - Throated Loon, Horned Grebe, Red - Necked Grebe, Northern Gannet, Great Cormorant, Double- Crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Tundra Swan. Mute Swan, Brant, Canada Goose, Green -Wed Teal, American Black Duck, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Gadwall American Wi eon Canvasback, Ring:. Necked Duck. Greater Scaup, Common Eider, Oldsquaw, Black Scoter, Surf Scoter, White - Winged Scoter, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser, Red - Breasted Merganser, Ruddy Duck, Northern Harrier, Sharp- Shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, Red - Tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Merlin, Ring- Necked Pheasant, Common Bobwhite, Clapper Rail, Virginia Rail, Sanderling, Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin, Common Snipe, American Woodcock Bonaparte's Gull, Ring - Billed Gull, Herring Gull, Iceland Gull, Lesser Black - Backed Gull, Great Black - Backed Gull, Razor Bill, Rock Dove, Mourning Dove, Barn Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Red - Bellied Woodpecker, Yellow - Bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, Horned Lark, Blue Jay, American Crow, Fish Crow, Black Capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Red - Breasted Nuthatch, White - Breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Carolina Wren, House Wren, Winter Wren, Golden - Crowned Kinglet, Ruby - Crowned Kinglet, Eastern Bluebird, Hermit Thrush, American Robin , Gray Catbird Northern Mockingbird, , Brown Thrasher, Cedar Waxwing, European Starling, Yellow - Rumped Warbler, Pine Warbler, Palm Warbler, Northern Cardinal, Rufous -Sided Towhee, American Tree Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, including Ipswich, Sham - Tailed Sparrow. Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White- Throated Sparrow, White- Crowned Sparrow, Dark -Eyed Junco, Snow Bunting, Red - Winged Blackbird, Eastern Meadowlark, Common Grackle, Brown- Headed Cowbird, Rusty Blackbird, Red Crossbill, White - Wineed Crossbill, House Finch, American Goldfinch, Evening Grosbeak and House Sparrow.