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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFebruary 07, 2002 - Where has all the winter gone_The Suffolk Times • February 7, 2002 Where has. all the the winter gone?HOW ABOUT ALL THIS MILD weather we have had? Don't get me wrong, I love it. With it come some interesting stories. One had to do with the recent snowstorm when a caller told me they had seen a salamander walking on the snow. Now you might wonder what a salamander is. Well, it is one of those seldom -seen creatures that live in the damp leaf mold of the woods and fields. They come to the ver- Focus nal ponds in the woods to lay ON theireggsusuallyNATUREinFebruaryandbPaulMarch. But with y this mild weather Stoutenburgh we' ve been hav- ing, I guess it's thrown everything off and this particular salamander decide( to head for the pond over the snow. Our caller also saw a painted turtle Turtles should be down at the bottom of a pond hibernating in the mud until spring, when the waters warm up. Then you'll see them basking in the sun on their favorite log. The painted turtle is our most common freshwater turtle. You can identify it by the yellow markings on its head and colorful underbody. It's rarely seen out in January. I had a turtle happening of my own, My son and I were out in the creek the other day to do a little clamming. It was low tide and a great day to be out, especially with the super -mild weather. The little bufflehead ducks that we now see in our creeks seemed to be everywhere. Flocks of 25 or more would break out of the water and fly away in their black- and -white dress. Then there was the occasional pair of black ducks that we would scare up. They had already paired off and with this low tide were enjoying 0 winter gone?. Times /Review photo by Paul Stoutenburgh Here you can see the long bill that is so characteristic of the woodcock. This is a young bird that hadn't as yet flown. The woodcock's main diet Is worms, which It probes for with Its long bill. Out in the bay we saw two or three oldsquaw ducks. They are our sea ducks that come down from the north to spend the winter here in our bays. I was disappointed in not seeing more of them, for years ago we' d see groups of 10 or 20 diving throughout the bay. We didn't even see any scoters, those large sea ducks that usually invade our area each winter. Perhaps the mild weather has kept them up north. We did see mergansers, but even those were few in number as well. We dug our clams, enjoyed the brisk breeze that was bay and, with the sun dropping low in the west, headed home. Just before we reached our dock, guess what we saw swimming alongside our boat? A diamondback terrapin. It's the saltwa- ter turtle that we find in all our creeks and bays. What was it doing out of its winter hibernation in the middle of January? My son scooped it up with a clam rake and brought it aboard. It was a big one, probably a female, and in perfect condition. It was slow mov- ing, I guess, because of the cold water. Usually when you come upon these diamondbacks in the summertime, they immediately dive down but this one was sort of sluggish, which enabled us to pick it up. So strange things are going o with this mild weather. The most inter- esting call was about a woodcock, which is a small game bird we occa- sionally flush up in our damp woods. It had been seen and heard courting. This elaborate courtship is known throughout the bird world as one of the most fascinating to listen to and see. It's a display that usually is witnessed in March. In a clearing the ma e s ru s to ron of the female trying to get her atten- tion. Then he bursts into the air in a spiral flight that reaches the height of almost 300 feet, where it pauses and sings for a moment, and then zigzags down, with its wings whistling until it reaches the ground. It then starts to strut again, giving off a nasal "peent peent" sound. It then repeats the whole ritual. Years ago we were fortu- nate to have found one of these courtship fields and our family watched and listened as the bird dis- played before us. Seeing this ritual going on this early in the year is most unusual and, as mentioned before, probably caused by the unseasonably warm temperatures. The woodcock feeds on worms that it pulls out of the ground with its extra -long bill. I photographed a nesting woodcock on the ground amongst the oak leaves in East Marion back in the 160s. Its color blended in perfectly with its sur- roundings. I walked right up to the bird and it stayed tight on its nest. I took my pictures and slowly backed away. I'll never forget those big black eyes staring at me. I wonder what was going through its mind. While speaking about East Marion I'll mention a call from a lady out that way who told me she saw a deer swimming in the Sound. Now the idea of a deer swimming is not unusual; they are good swimmers. I remember watching a dog chase a deer down a beach one time until the deer got so frustrated it took to the water and left the dog barking on the beach. It swam across Cutchogue Harbor, which is probably a good mile to Nassau Point. There, through my binoculars, I could see it leave the water, shake itself off and trot off into the woods as if noth- ing had happened. So swimming is nothing unusual for a deer, but why was this one swim- ming in the Sound? Someone jokingly said, "With the mild weather, it proba- bly just went for a swim," It didn't appear to be swimming to anv place in particular. It was out about a tnousanu feet off shore. Could it have been dri- ven into the water by dogs and then paralleled the beach until the dogs left? We'll never know, but that's the first time I've heard of a deer swim- ming in the Sound. One last bit of information about a snowy owl we were watching on the beach just recently. We had taken my 20x scope to check it out. We found the owl settled in amongst some debris on the beach. What fascinated me most about this snowy owl was its big red smile. It had evidently caught something and just finished a bloody meal. I'd never seen a snowy owl with red on it like that before. Most of the time they live on small rodents that they swallow whole. While we were observing this unusual sight, we noticed a group of shorebirds working their way along the beach. Now what could they be eat- ing in the middle of January? Well, as I watched them through my scope I could clearly see the sanderlings and turnstones picking up and flipping over small thumb - sized slipper shells, or boat shells as some people call them. I actually saw one sanderling pick up a slipper shell and run away from the group to enjoy its find by itself. Evidently these small slipper shells had attached themselves to stones near the water's edge. Then during those few cold days the tem- erature dropped and froze things, it did in the slipper shells. They fell off the stones and washed ashore, where the birds had found them. Sounds like a pretty good way to survive and it surely proved that if there is a food supply around, somebody will be there to take advantage of it. Even though the unusually warm weather threw a lot of wildlife into confusion, wasn't it delightful? Hope you eot out to eniov it.