A Publication of North Fork Audubon Society, Inc

A message from our President,

If there is one takeaway from our Fall/Winter Newsletter, it is that North Fork Audubon is an organization made up of industrious, creative and motivated volunteers. 

Whether raising monarch butterflies, weeding and rototilling the gardens and walking the trails at Inlet Pond Park, monitoring beaches throughout the North Fork to help protect nesting Shorebirds, organizing native plant sales, building and monitoring nest boxes and platforms for Ospreys and cavity nesting birds,  tracking the migration of Yellow-Billed Cuckoos, or researching the origins and raison d’etre of the Audubon Society, trying to make sense of it all in today’s world – we are clearly dedicated to connecting people with nature.  

At this morning’s bird walk at the Ruth Oliva Preserve at Dam Pond, crisp, newly fallen oak leaves blanketed the paths and Buffleheads and Mergansers made their first appearance on the pond.  There is always something to enjoy in our natural world on the North Fork, and there are always things that we can do to nurture it.  With your involvement, whether as donor, program participant and/or volunteer, we continue to thrive. Thank you all for another great year at North Fork Audubon!

-Peggy

Back in December 2020, Suffolk County cleared a woodland area at Inlet Pond County Park that had been overrun with mile-a-minute weed (click to see photo). Since then, North Fork Audubon Society (NFAS) volunteers have handweeded and rototilled this quarter acre, dubbed the Native Songscape, four times over the past two years, preparing the soil to be planted as a grassland. In May 2022, it was rototilled a final time, then seeded with native grasses and forbs. The seed mixture, custom mixed for NFAS by Ernst Seeds, consisted of 24 native grasses and herbaceous perennials (forbs). After seeding, the area was raked and rolled to make a firm seedbed. Temporary irrigation was provided for most of that spring and summer.

During the 2022 growing season, most of the visible ground cover in the Songscape was either crabgrass or re-sprouted weeds we had painstakingly removed prior to spring seeding. Last fall, glimpsing any native seedlings pushing up through the crabgrass was difficult; however, getting a slow start isn’t unusual for native plants’ first growing season, which is when they expend energy establishing roots, not leaves.

Survey results (“Inventory of Plant Species Growing in the Songscape”) reveal that a number of native species have aggressively established themselves within the Songscape during the last 15 months. Autumn bentgrass, little bluestem and deertongue are present in nearly all the quadrats in either heavy or medium density. These three native species were part of the Ernst seed mix.

Two forbs are well distributed in the eastern half or ‘A’ section of the meadow: late boneset and American burnweed. Several well-established bonesets on the perimeter of the meadow appear to be the seed source of the meadow bonesets. American burnweed is a native annual species known to emerge unexpectedly in disturbed sites and then grow for one or two seasons before disappearing. 

“Early one morning when the parking lot at Goose Creek was empty and the beach quiet, a hawk glided along the shoreline. In the moment the protesting Least Terns surrounded the hawk, I smiled in relief when a precious, determined snowball on toothpicks ran a long, solitary retreat from the shore to the safety of the fencing. That was a lovely way to start a morning.” – Carol Owens, volunteer shorebird steward.

Despite the dedication of over a dozen NFAS volunteer shorebird stewards, NFAS Shorebird Manager Jennifer Murray, and several fencing helpers, the 2023 season was a rough year for Piping Plovers, a federal and state endangered species.  According to Jennifer, “the overall fledge rate for Town of Southold sites was 1.0 - which will maintain a population but not build a population. To build numbers, the goal is a 2.0 fledge rate.”  A 1.0 fledge rate means that only one baby chick reached flying age per each plover pair. Each pair lays an initial clutch of four eggs, and can lay additional clutches.  

Mattituck Inlet had the most disappointing Piping Plover results, “soul-crushing” as volunteer shorebird monitor Scott Rosen once put it. However, there was also good news. The Least Tern colony there was much more successful in 2023 than last year, possibly due to the installation of sheep fencing. And, the decrease at Mattituck Inlet was offset by an increase in Piping Plovers at other North Fork locations, including sites where they had not previously nested. 

Said Jen, “Mattituck Inlet had the highest number of plover pairs of any Town of Southold site, including the county and state park sites. The success rate was low however, due to an increase in human-caused disturbances / human recreational activity which adversely affects nesting sites and causes chick mortality and nest failures.” These disturbances include large parties of people camping overnight with barbecues and bonfires, despite the park being closed overnight from 9 pm to 7 am. Visitors ignored signs and walked through the string-fenced nesting areas. There were several incidents involving Southold Police and NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) staff, and Mattituck Park District increased their evening security measures. 

Kyra Leonardi is another of about 15 volunteers helping Jen monitor Piping Plovers, Least Terns, American Oystercatchers, and other state-listed species at about 20 Town beaches pursuant to a Southold Town grant. Each volunteer visits a New York DEC designated site at least once a week to collect data about the mated pairs, nests, chicks, ages of chicks, fledge dates, and departure dates, and to note the presence of predators and other disturbances. Said Kyra, “There are a number of factors that influence the fledging success rate: Territory size/competition, predators, fireworks, and wrack raking. Anything that keeps the parents off the nest or away from the babies lowers the chance of successful fledging.” 

Says Jen, “There is an influx of folks with dogs that just moved out to the North Fork within the last year. There was an increase in folks walking dogs off leash, which violates town code. These newcomers may be unaware of leash laws on town beaches. Town of Southold installed signs at the end of every road leading to a beach this season, particularly the beaches with nesting shorebirds. However, it would be beneficial to inform North Fork residents and visitors that there is a town code stating dogs may not even be walked ON leash near protected nesting shorebird sites. Directing people to alternative dog waking sites, away from endangered shorebirds, is a great method of alleviating tensions. New signs should be posted at each beach with nesting shorebirds to alert dog walkers when fencing is installed (March-April) or just before.”

All-terrain vehicles can accidentally kill chicks. ATVs are only allowed on the property owner’s property, above the mean high tide mark, but many drive ATVs below the high tide mark. This is, of course, where Piping Plovers forage for food, and where Least Terns like to loaf. Before the chicks can fly (about 23 days old) they can only walk. As a defense mechanism, chicks will stop moving and “hunker down” in a depression in the sand, making them hard to see and easy to be run over or stepped on. 

Some beachfront homeowners rake their wrack – the tangled mat of mixed seaweed generally left behind at the mid to high tide mark – because they find it unattractive. However, it is full of the sand-dwelling invertebrates, such as beach hoppers, roly-polies, kelp flies, and rove beetles, that the shorebirds love to eat.

Kyra is hopeful that community members, once educated, will take steps to avoid harm to the endangered species. “While I was monitoring I would also sometimes see people using those garbage collecting baskets that are by the beach entrance, so it goes to show that people are willing to help if we give them the means. I think if we could provide more targeted information in our signage it could help with some of the problems like dog walking. If we just have signs that say no dogs, people will probably assume it's more an issue of people not cleaning up after their dog rather than their presence being a problem for the birds.” 

And if ATVs, dogs, bonfires, wrack-rakers, fireworks, and avian predators aren’t enough of a threat, the coastal habitat of the shorebirds is also shrinking, through both human development and natural forces. Said NFAS President Peggy Lauber, who monitors shorebirds in Greenport, “What I found most surprising — and discouraging — was the amount of beach erosion I witnessed during the nesting season at the site I was helping monitor. The stakes we had pounded in at the beginning of the season for the symbolic fencing were nearly all under water by the time we were ready to remove them at the end of the season, and we were sure this contributed to the lack of success for the nesting Piping Plovers as well as Oystercatchers.”

According to the New York DEC website, the Piping Plover “was driven to near extinction around the turn of the century by extensive hunting for meat and sport. Protection since 1918 by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allowed Piping Plovers to make a recovery by the mid-1920s. The population peaked in the 1940s, but declined once again due to development and recreation following World War II. Continued human pressures such as coastal development, recreational activities, and disturbance by off-road vehicles have reduced the available suitable breeding habitat for these birds. No population increases were recorded from the 1970s to the 1980s. However, recent surveys have estimated the Atlantic Coast population slightly higher at approximately 800 breeding pairs, about 200 of which nest in New York.” 

NFAS hosted its annual Fall native plant sale September 9-10, 2023. Landscape Committee Chair Robin Simmen, who used to teach Master Gardeners, took a turn becoming Master Organizer. She and board member Carol Edwards recruited and led a large group of NFAS volunteers through all the activities that make our native plant sales so successful. These include ordering a wide variety of native plants from our wholesale supplier Glover Perennials, creating signs to describe each species--including plant characteristics such as height, spread, sun and water requirements--unloading and arranging the plants, and working at check-out. In addition, the sale was advertised through local newspapers, social media, and our website to draw in as many community members as possible.

This year was our most successful fall plant sale to date. In our outreach and plant choices, we emphasized our “Berries for Birds” program, with a particular focus on offering berrying plants and shrubs, as well as a wide variety of drought and deer tolerant perennials. We offered a total of 920 plants representing 82 different native plant species! 

A new aspect of our biannual spring and fall native plant sales is the plant pre-sale held on the Friday evening before the general public sale. The purpose of the presale initiative is to recognize and thank our contributors for their generous support. We hosted a wine and cheese event, inviting donors and volunteers to gather together and offering them their first choice of plants to purchase. This year was a beautiful evening and the event was well-attended.

Kudos to the Landscape Committee and all our NFAS volunteers for a wonderful bi-annual event!

Many people enjoy building bird houses, either as a creative pursuit or to provide housing for our avian friends. But have you ever wondered whether constructing homes for breeding birds is a helpful practice, or if we should encourage them to fend for themselves? The answer is - it depends! Three bird species local to the North Fork have benefited from man-made housing: Ospreys, Purple Martins, and Eastern Bluebirds. Read on to determine whether your property might offer a suitable habitat for any of these birds, and if it is suitable, are you ready to make the commitment needed for long-term success? 

It would be hard to miss the proliferation of Ospreys in recent years, who migrate here from their winter homes in South America to breed and raise their young. 50 years ago, these birds were listed as “Endangered” by the DEC, after DDT nearly decimated the population by causing the shells of their eggs to become thin and break. With the banning of DDT, in the years that followed, their remarkable comeback began and continued through the present (They were downgraded to “Threatened” in 1983, then “Special Concern” in 1999). We humans provided housing for them by constructing nest platforms, and they were able to successfully nest in coastal habitats such as ours.  

Does this mean we should continue to construct platforms, so that in years to come the young that fledge here will be able to return to nest alongside their parents and families? I asked Bob DeLuca, President of Group for the East End, the organization that has been monitoring the East End Osprey population for more than 30 years. He said that nest platforms helped stabilize their population during the years they were struggling. Now the birds are finding their way and increasingly finding natural nesting sites. “Ospreys are remarkably capable of fending for themselves.  They are a success story – our job is not to continue to manage them if they don’t need it.” 

As it turns out, historically these birds have nested in trees, on offshore rocks – or even right on the beach. And they are now building nests on docks, chimneys and similar structures. In recent years, as their populations have recovered, overdevelopment and habitat loss have caused many birds to attempt to build nests on utility poles. The Group for the East End has been working with PSEG to build safeguards in these nests and/or deter the building of nests on the poles. As for existing poles built on public and private property, Osprey depend on these and continued repairs may be needed as well.  If you are a private homeowner and feel your property might be suitable habitat for Ospreys, the Group can help with an initial assessment (check the FAQ page on their website). 

Eastern Bluebirds, like Robins, are members of the Thrush family. These shy, iridescent blue birds (not to be confused with Blue Jays!) nest in the eastern United States and southern Canada, and many live year-round on the North Fork. They are also the New York State bird. Like the Purple Martins, they are insectivores, but do not feed exclusively on the wing and will eat fruit if insects are not available. They build their nests in natural cavities such as holes in trees, wooden fence posts or holes already created by Woodpeckers, but will also choose man-made nest boxes if available. Due to loss of habitat (removal of dead trees and fewer trees) that reduced the Bluebird population in the latter part of the 20th century, humans began to construct Bluebird “nest box trails” that have successfully increased their numbers.   

Bluebirds will nest in these man-made boxes in open fields and orchards – not in your typical backyard setting. The boxes need to be about 5’ high, mounted on a predator-proof pole, with each pole about 100 feet apart.  They should never be mounted on trees or fences, as they would be vulnerable to predation by Raccoons. There are many other birds who will compete for the chance to nest in these boxes, especially Tree Swallows, Black Capped Chickadees, House Wrens, and House Sparrows, which are a non-native species not protected by Federal laws.  While it is OK to allow the first three of these species to use the nests, you do NOT want House Sparrows.  They are invasive and will kill the other birds and take over their nest boxes.  If you find a House Sparrow nest in any of these boxes it needs to be immediately removed. This is a huge problem, as many well-meaning people will put up Bluebird nest boxes, but do not realize that they need to be monitored. This can result in the House Sparrows breeding

and becoming more numerous, which is worse than not putting up boxes at all.  House Wrens will also destroy Bluebird eggs and will readily fill the boxes with sticks.  For these reasons, it is imperative that Bluebird nest boxes are monitored at least weekly during their nesting season.  

Monitoring the boxes can be very discouraging. Over the years I have found Bluebird nests with up to 5 lovely blue eggs, only to return a few days later to find the eggs missing – or worse, a dead Bluebird in the box, killed by a House Sparrow.  But to witness a clutch of Bluebird (or Tree Swallow) eggs, observe freshly hatched babies, watch the young nestlings being fed by their attentive parents and then fledge is a magical thing. 

And at the end of each nesting season, after the nestlings have all fledged, all Purple Martin houses and Bluebird boxes need to be cleaned out to reduce the parasite population and make room for next year’s arrivals.  

As you can see, Ospreys, Purple Martins, and Eastern Bluebirds can greatly benefit from man-made housing, but your time and attention are required to keep these bird tenants safe and healthy. If you are interested in becoming an avian man-made housing landlord, these organizations provide excellent information and guidelines:

Purple Martin Conservation Society: purplemartin.org

New York State Bluebird Society: NYSBS.org

Group for the East End: groupfortheeastend.org

John James Audubon (1785-1851) is widely considered the founding father of American birding.  His life-sized bird engravings depicted in Birds of America brought attention to the diversity of birds and set a bar for realism in nature art that continues to influence artists today.  Yet, more than 125 years after the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds, the legacy of John James Audubon is undergoing a broad cultural reexamination.   His artistic achievements and love of birds are being weighed against his slaveholding and his opposition to abolition, and many Audubon organizations are deciding that they no longer want to bear his name. 

John James Audubon did not start the Audubon Society.  Forty-five years after his death, The Massachusetts Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in 1896 by Boston Brahmins Harriet Hemenway (1858-1960) and her cousin Minna B. Hall (1860-1951) in response to the commercial slaughter of birds for women’s ornamental hats.  Feathers had been used in clothing for centuries, but feathered Victorian hats, particularly exotic feathers, became a highly coveted status symbol starting in the 1870s.  By the late 1800s, the plume trade had decimated several species of birds including the snowy and great egrets, flamingos, and roseate spoonbills.  Hunters focused on rookeries because feathers are most vibrant during mating season.  It was estimated that plume hunters were able to destroy rookeries of several hundred birds in just two or three days.   In 1902 one-and-a-half tons of egret feathers were sold, which calculates to 200,000 birds killed. The number of birds killed by hunters in Florida alone was as high as five million. 

Ms. Hemenway and Ms. Hall consulted the Blue Book, Boston’s social register, and launched a series of tea parties where they informed their friends that birds were disappearing and urged them to stop wearing feathered hats. “We sent out circulars asking the women to join a society for the protection of birds, especially the egret.  Some women joined and some who preferred to wear feathers would not join.”  (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/) Nine hundred women joined the boycott and formed a partnership with many from Boston’s scientific community.  The society was named after John James Audubon, and Audubon societies formed in more than a dozen states.  In 1905, a national committee of Audubon societies was created which would eventually be called the National Audubon Society.  The symbol of the National Audubon Society is the Great Egret. 

These societies were vital in the passage of the 1913 Migratory Bird Conservation Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 with Great Britain.   As one of the first federal environmental laws, it protects migratory birds between the United States and Canada, making it unlawful to “pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill or sell” nearly 1,100 species of migratory birds. 

The move to consider removing Audubon’s name from our societies stems from recent history. Although racism and discrimination against people of color have been a constant in American history, George Floyd’s murder by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, was a major catalyst for protests against racism and for calls to reexamine America’s racist culture and cultural artifacts.  That same day in May, Christian Cooper, a Black birder and Board member of New York Audubon, was threatened by a white woman when asked to leash her dog.  His video of the encounter was viewed over 40 million times and was seen as another example of false accusations and racial profiling against Black people.  The calls for racial justice led to the toppling or removal of Confederate monuments and memorials.  These protests also encouraged academic institutions and scholarly societies to remove potentially offensive references from journal names or academic prizes.  For example, the Bird Names for Birds campaign was launched in June, 2020, with a letter to the American Ornithological Society requesting that birds named after historical figures with links to slavery and white supremacists be changed.

In this atmosphere of racial examination, many powerful, successful, and predominantly white conservation organizations confronted their own history.  John Muir (1838-1914), the founder of the modern wilderness and conservation movements, was the first president of the Sierra Club.  In the summer of 2020, the Sierra Club denounced him as a racist unworthy of the Club’s adulation.   

The National Audubon Society similarly reexamined the life and legacy of the organization’s namesake in a series of essays in Audubon magazine that publicly acknowledged that John James Audubon bought and sold slaves. The first, published July 31, 2020, “The Myth of John James Audubon,” was written by Gregory Nobles, a historian and biographer of John James Audubon.  Nobles writes about the tremendous artistic and ornithological achievements of Audubon, his passion and sacrifice to draw every American bird in the “size of life.”   The author also describes in detail Audubon’s ownership, selling and acquisition of slaves.  He dismisses the argument that “He was a man of his time” because many people in this era were strong proponents of the abolition of slavery.  Audubon strongly disapproved of the abolitionist movement, writing to his wife in 1834 that the British government had “acted imprudently and too precipitously” in emancipating enslaved people in the West Indian possessions.  Nobles concludes the article with these thoughts: “In this critical time of reckoning with racism, we must recognize that the institution of slavery in America’s past has a deep connection to institutions in the present – our governments, businesses, banks, universities, and also some of our most respected and beloved organizations.  Audubon didn’t create the National Audubon Society, but he remains part of its identity.  As much as we celebrate his environmental legacy, we need to grapple with his racial legacy.  If we could train our binoculars on history, now is the time to do so.” (https://www.audubon.org/news/the-myth-john-james-audubon)

In spring, 2021, Audubon published “What Do We Do About John James Audubon?”.  Written by J. Drew Lanham, a Black American ornithologist on the faculty of Clemson University where his work focuses on the intersections among race, place, and nature, the article describes his love of birds and his childhood adulation of John James Audubon and what he calls the almost “mythical power of Audubon.”  Latham speaks about the fact that John James Audubon is American birding and how the name “Audubon” is “imbued with ascendant conservation powers.”   However, Lanham also details how “race is an issue in every aspect of American life, including birding, conservation, nature stewardship and environmentalism writ large.”  He urges environmental and conservation organizations to consider human injustices as part of their essential work. “Injustice and inequality don’t have statutes of limitations and don’t cease to exist where people sling binoculars.  Racism doesn’t stop at the borders of migratory hotspots.”   (https://www.audubon.org/magazine/spring-2021/what-do-we-do-about-john-james-audubon) 

The Christian Science Monitor published an article on July 15, 2021, entitled “How Audubon societies are grappling with a racist past.”  In the article, David O’Neill, president of Mass Audubon, discusses how environmental groups understand that the future of their movement hinges on changing their white, elitist reputation.  “If we don’t get younger and we don’t get more diverse, we’re not going to have people to advocate on behalf of nature, and that’s not good for anyone.”  Scott Edwards, an ornithologist at Harvard, comments that some green groups will have to re-imagine their mission and pivot to more urban populations. “Organizations will have to think creatively about how to get communities of color more connected with nature.” (https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2021/0715/How-Audubon-societies-are-grappling-with-a-racist-past)

In early 2022, the Board of Directors of the National Audubon Society began an evaluation process to determine whether the organization should continue to bear his name.  Approximately 2,300 people from inside the organization were surveyed: staff, donors, members, volunteers, state and national board members, chapter officers, campus chapter members and external partners.  Views of students interested in conservation, members of environmental groups, and donors to environmental groups were also surveyed.  To ensure adequate representation in the data, 598 responses from a national survey of people of color and younger people were included. Factors weighed by the Board included the complexity of John James Audubon legacy in terms of his racist views and actions and his contribution to birds, the role of the Audubon name in positioning the organization as a powerful and influential force for conservation and birds, the current name’s reflection or disconnection from the values of the organization, and the anticipated operational, legal, and financial implications of undertaking a name change and rebranding process. 

In an open letter to Audubon members on March 16, 2023, Elizabeth Gray, Chief Executive Officer of National Audubon Society, announced that the 32-member Board of Directors voted to retain the organization’s current name. (Three board members resigned after the vote.)  Speaking about the urgency of the climate and biodiversity crises, Dr. Gray pointed to the need to marshal forces towards the areas of greatest impact for birds and people.  She wrote: “I understand people may be wondering how that is possible if Audubon remains in our name.  That is a question that the Board has grappled with, and ultimately, they decided that the organization transcends one person’s name. ‘Audubon’ has come to symbolize our mission and significant achievements that this organization has made in its long history.” A new $25 million commitment to fund the expansion of equity, diversity, and inclusion-specific work in conservation initiatives over the next five years was also announced. (https://www.audubon.org/news/open-letter-ceo-audubons-name) 

There are over 450 local chapters of the National Audubon Society.  Affiliated chapters are independent 501(c)(3) organizations that have the right to choose their own name. Whether a chapter decides to keep or change its name does not affect its affiliation or funding from the National Society.   More than 40 local Audubon chapters are engaged in a deliberative process to decide whether to keep the Audubon name.  Seattle changed its name to Birds Connect Seattle; the Washington D.C. chapter renamed itself Nature Forward; Golden Gate Audubon is now Golden Gate Bird Alliance; and the Madison chapter renamed itself Badgerland Bird Alliance.   Local chapters in Portland, Maryland, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and New York City have all decided to drop the Audubon name and are working on identifying a process to select a new name. 

On November 1, 2023, the governing Council of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) announced its commitment to changing all English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people, along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary. AOS president Colleen Handel, Ph.D., stated: “There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today. Everyone who loves and cares about birds should be able to enjoy and study them freely – and birds need our help now more than ever.” (https//americanornithology.org/about/english-bird-names-project)

The Board of Directors of North Fork Audubon Society has decided to initiate its own assessment of whether to change the name of our organization.  We anticipate that it will take 6 to 8 months to examine the impact of the “Audubon” name on our mission to protect wild birds and their habitat and to connect people to nature.  We plan to actively seek input from our members, stakeholders, and community organizations with whom we partner. In the meantime, please feel free to share your thoughts by contacting ebirenbaum@northforkaudubon.org.

Emelinda Diaz “Vida Wichi”

Since I was a child, I have spent a lot of time in nature, observing the complex and delicate web of thousands of interactions between the organic and inorganic worlds. Growing up in the sixties, most of it without adult supervision. Swimming in the sea, horseback riding, walking through the dunes, helping in the farm’s multiple chores, in the vast coast and farmland of the Argentine Pampas. I decided to study agricultural engineering, and spend my professional life studying and managing, production and consumption systems. As an adult I had the chance to work in many different geographies, though the notion of migration came late in my career.  

Migrations are a natural phenomenon, they exceed the concept of nations, and give us a sense of the world as our home. Today probably 20% of the people in the world are migrating. Five percent are definitively moving to another country while others are in transit. Migrating implies adaptations both in the migrant population and in the ecosystem that receives them. Two thirds of the bird’s species in United States migrate, seasonally.   

 While getting to know a little more about them I came across the Yellow-billed Cuckoos migrating through Long Island. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo winter in Gran Chaco Region. According to McNeil “The first geolocator-carrying Yellow-billed Cuckoo to be tracked over one year was a female captured on the middle Rio Grande, New Mexico (Sechrist et al. 2012). The data revealed a post-breeding dispersal phase in northwest Mexico, fall migration through Mexico and Central America, wintering in central South America in the Gran Chaco region of Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, spring migration back to the breeding grounds via the Caribbean and Yucatan Peninsula, and a pre-breeding stop-over again in northwest Mexico. With the year-round movements of just one individual known, our objectives were to gain further understanding of western cuckoos’ migration and wintering periods, including identifying the main areas used for wintering. This information may help to clarify the birds’ risks year-round.”  

 I learned that Yellow-billed Cuckoos have one of the shortest nesting cycles of any bird species and the longest migration route. Also, that the people of any of the countries where they go consider the rattling gulps and hollow hoots of their calls, as announcing rain or storms.  

I have been working for the last ten years in the Gran Chaco Region, co-creating www.matriarca. The collaboration with women leaders from the Pilaga, Wichi, Qmlec and Mqvies communities taught me a lot about the culture of care and intending to be a constructive and regenerative force in the ecosystem.  The GCH is a hot and semiarid lowland, the second largest forest, in the heart of South America, more than 200 million acres. Its extended forests are home to 3,400 plants and 500 bird species and hundreds of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Nine million people are estimated to live in the area, including 30 different indigenous ethnic groups, who were originally nomads.   

For the Wichi people a good quality of life comes from being in harmony with nature, so does for the members of North Fork Audubon Society. An invitation to getting to know and love yourself and your neighbors.   

We get lots of people walking the trails at Inlet Pond County Park, but if it’s been a while, let me lead you on a virtual tour pointing out some of our plant standouts.

It can get confusing to some where all the trails go.  We have Black, Blue, Red, White and Yellow.  A year ago we put up more ‘You are Here’ maps in the park which have helped a lot and there are trail maps at the entrance.

The trail head is the Black Trail, which is basically a big circle around the park.  At the very beginning is our new picnic/rest area.  After the privet trees were cleared out we brought in wood chips from Southold Town and then Brady Woods, a scout from Southold offered to build two picnic tables and two benches for his Eagle Scout project.  It’s a wonderful, shady place to rest and enjoy the birds and trees.

Where the Black Trails branches with the Blue to the left and the Black to the right are three holly trees.  One was uncovered from invasives growing over it a few years ago and two years ago we received a donation from Sang Lee of two native holly trees which we planted nearby.  All three are doing well.  We hope to see baby hollies some day!

Continuing on with the Black Trail, you will walk through a sassafras grove.  Again, we cleared many, many privets away so the sassafras are more visible.  They are a wonderful native tree with a distinctive taste and they do spread very easily.

Past the sassafras grove, the White Trail branches to the left, leading to the Red Trail and then meandering to the Black Trail.  

Just past the turn-off to the White Trail is a grove of elderberries that were also freed from serious invasive vines covering them completely.  We hope they will thrive but they’ve been through a lot of stress.

The Black Trail at this point does have bayberries but the biggest stand of bayberries is on the Yellow Trail.  These are native trees that reach about 10’-20’ with silver or white-grey berries in autumn that persist until the following growing season.  Their fragrance is amazing.

At the top of the hill, you can find the bench on the bluff, to the right, which shows the Sound in all her glory.  Straight ahead is the Yellow Trail and the prolific stand of bayberries.  Or….follow the Black Trail to the left.

If you’re still on the Black Trail, you’ll wend your way through more plantings of oak, witch hazel and dogwood.  This is the area which had the most privet infestation.  So much has been pulled or cut down, but this winter we’ll be going through it all again.  There is a very impressive white birch, with five trunks.  It is harder for birches to survive our newly warmer climate but this one is a beauty.  And we planted some native gray birches nearby.  They are doing well.

You will also see a lot of mile-a-minute covering large swaths of the park like a blanket.  We are strategizing the best way of containing this menace.  It produces berries which get spread all over and its seeds stay viable in the ground for over five years, so even pulling it out leaves residual mile-a-minute waiting to re-emerge.  

At some point the Yellow Trail meets the Black and you are close to the Red House.  First you get to see Prentice Pond, which has a blind in front to hide behind.  Turtles and fish are in the pond, along with other wildlife.  There are bat houses a girl scout troop built on the other side of the blind.  A lot of clearing was done around the pond too, opening it up to view.  

We work on the trails every weekend, Saturdays from 7am-noon.  If anyone wants to help, please let us know.  You definitely see results from your efforts!

I started raising monarch butterflies using a butterfly cage 2 years ago.  My niece sent pictures of her young children doing it, and I was so interested I tried it myself.  I knew that monarchs use milkweed plants to reproduce on their long migration to Mexico, so I had allowed a few milkweed plants to grow in my gardens (careful, they are rampant spreaders so put them where you won’t mind if they take over).  Then I got the cage, from RestCloud, (there are other brands), and began the process when the monarch butterflies arrived in early summer. 

The zipper door of the cage allows you to get in and out easily.  It also folds down to the size of a shirt when you are done, to hang in a closet until the next year.  (Check the website for cleaning procedure at season end.)

The first step is to find a monarch egg on the underside of a milkweed leaf.  It is actually egg shaped, oval and oblong, and a light beige color, but only about a sixteenth of an inch long or less, so a bit tricky to find.  I did find a few, or so I thought, and cut the leaves with eggs off the plant stems, and put them in large mayonnaise jars on a windowsill, lightly covered with lids, with a damp paper towel in the bottom of each jar.  After a few days, a few of the eggs hatched and there were tiny caterpillars on the milkweed leaves in the jars!

The next step is to set up your cage.  First, line the bottom with paper towels, and put the cage on a tray for support.  Then find one or two milkweed branches with young tender leaves (they prefer them) and cut them off slightly less tall than the cage. Put their stems in a large jar of water and put the jar in the cage.  I kept the cage near a slightly open window for ventilation.  

When the tiny caterpillar in the jar on the windowsill has eaten a small hole in the leaf, take the leaf out of the jar and put the whole leaf with the caterpillar in the cage, resting it on another milkweed leaf on one of the branches you put in the cage.  The caterpillar will soon find the fresh leaf and begin devouring it.  Never touch the caterpillar.  First the caterpillars are small, but in several days they become larger and larger, eventually up to two inches long.  

They eat a lot! You must change the water in the jar that holds the milkweeds in the cage and also change the milkweed branches every couple of days so they have fresh leaves to eat. You also need to clean the cage of caterpillar scat, sometimes daily.  This is important as they have to keep eating and will sicken if you don’t clean the cage.  The paper towels on the bottom of the cage make this relatively easy.  You can raise several caterpillars in the same cage at once, but the amount of feeding and cleaning is in relation to the amount of caterpillars that you have.  When you put a new branch in the cage, you break off the off the old leaf the caterpillar is on and lay it on a leaf on the new branch.  They go for the new food.  You may need a spray bottle of water if it’s super dry, and if the caterpillar looks sluggish, a gentle water spray helps.

After about 2 weeks, the caterpillar stops eating and starts attaching itself to a leaf or the top of the cage.  It will hang there and make the pupa over a day or two, a fascinating process to watch.  Then you have to wait 8-10 days, and the pupa turns very dark, almost black.  In this photo, you can see a new green pupa, a black one just about to hatch, and the clear shell of a pupa already hatched!

Then the new butterfly emerges!  Another amazing event! The butterfly will stay where it hatched for a few hours, in order to dry out its wings, and then will start flying around the cage.  That is when you take the cage outside and open the zipper door, and set it free.  Mine have usually flown up to a tree branch, where they stay for a while, and then they go off to join the rest of the monarchs in the wild.
It’s definitely a long process and takes a few weeks from start to finish, but is very rewarding when you actually release the butterfly.  This year I raised 6, and about the same number the past 2 years.  It is so beautiful to see them fly away.

One thing you will notice if you try this is the challenges the monarchs face in nature.  For example, the first year I did this, 2020, there were many more monarchs arriving in summer, and the weather was moderate.  You could easily find the eggs and even see caterpillars on the other milkweeds in the yard.  Last year, there were many fewer arrivals, and the early summer was incredibly dry, which resulted in the eggs drying on the milkweed plants.  I don’t think there are many birds that will eat these caterpillars, but I think there are a few, as the caterpillars would disappear from the plants in the wild.  This year was a super dry spring and early summer, and the same thing happened: the eggs were very few or dried out until the end of July and August, when we finally had decent rain.  Then there were a few more butterflies and eggs in the wild.

Children and adults love to see this whole metamorphosis, but you, the adult, will probably have to do the work of cleaning the cage and putting in new branches. (Sound familiar?) Worth it to help the endangered monarchs survive!

Estimados vecinos del North Fork

Muchos han migrado hace tiempo , otros recientemente. Pero todos aprendimos a hacer de este lugar nuestra comunidad.

Los necesitamos para que vengan a participar como voluntarios en North Fork Audubon , acá nos dedicamos a conectar a las personas con la naturaleza. Nuestra misión es proteger la naturaleza, y apoyar la convivencia con otras especies, ofrecemos muchos programas educativos para niños , jóvenes y adultos. Puedes hacer tus horas de voluntario aquí , en la naturaleza, conversalo en  tu escuela.. Somos responsables del Inlet Pond Parque, que lleva a la playa,y lo mantenemos con trabajo voluntario. Tenemos tres jardines demostrativos en el frente de la casa Roja o Red House, uno es una pradera nativa natural , otro es un jardín compuesto por plantas nativas pero organizado para que florezca todo el año , el último es un jardín  de bayas, que está en construcción. Monitoreamos los pájaros playeros y somos parte del programa sea un Buen Huevo, que recuerda a los visitantes que no dejen basura tirada en la playa, tenga a su perro con correa mientras lo pasean y que respeten las áreas valladas que cuidan de los pájaros que anidan y sus polluelos. ¡Los esperamos , hay mucho por hacer!

Dear North Fork Neighbors,

Many have migrated a long time ago, others recently. But we all learned to make this place our community.

We need you to come volunteer at North Fork Audubon, here we are dedicated to connecting people with nature. Our mission is to protect nature, and support coexistence with other species. We offer many educational programs for children, young people and adults. You can do your volunteer hours here in nature, talk to your teachers. We are responsible for the Inlet Pond Park, which leads to the beach, and we maintain its trails with volunteer work. We have three demonstration gardens in front of the Red House, one is a natural native meadow, another is a garden composed of native plants but organized so that it blooms all year round, the last is a berry garden, which is in construction. We monitor shorebirds and are part of the Be a Good Egg program, which reminds visitors not to leave trash on the beach, keep their dog on a leash while walking it, and respect fenced areas that care for nesting birds. and their chicks. We welcome all volunteers.