A Publication of North Fork Audubon Society, Inc

As spring gently gives way to summer, we at North Fork Audubon take a moment to reflect on the season now behind us. May-Gration brought us a series of fruitful bird walks across the North Fork, where we witnessed the return of warblers, orioles, and other migratory marvels making their brief but brilliant stopovers in our region.

Now, as the days grow longer, we welcome summer and all it brings — nesting season, coastal walks, pollinator blooms, and time spent soaking in the beauty of our shared landscape. Whether you’re exploring trails, tending native gardens, or listening for the calls of shorebirds along the Sound, we hope you’ll continue to find inspiration in nature with us this summer.

Please enjoy this issue’s articles celebrating the birds, insects, and native plants of the North Fork — and our treasured Inlet Pond County Park

My favorite volunteer task at North Fork Audubon Society is to oversee Bluebird nest box trails throughout the North Fork.  Because the Eastern Bluebird nests in tree cavities, one way to encourage their population growth is to offer man-made nest boxes, in habitats very specific to their needs (basically, open or mowed fields away from brushy areas, but with trees nearby for newly fledged Bluebirds to roost on).  

To call these “Bluebird trails” is really a misnomer, because other birds may choose to nest in these same boxes.  Invasive House Wrens and House Sparrows often take advantage of the opportunity and will drive away or kill Bluebirds.  Occasionally Chickadees or Tufted Titmice will occupy these as well.  It’s a challenging and difficult task to pave the way for a successful clutch of Bluebird babies, and some years we have a zero % success rate.  

However, there is another bird that also loves to use the boxes — the unsung hero and topic of this article.  Earlier this spring I received a text from one of my Bluebird nest box trail landlords (the owner of the farm where we installed a group of boxes).  “We saw a blue bird flying out of one of the boxes!” She wrote. 

“A blue bird?  Or a Bluebird?” I responded.  “Was it dark blue with a white underbelly? Or royal blue with an orange breast?” She wasn’t sure. I drove to the property and looked at the bird perched on top of the box.  Sure enough, it was a Tree Swallow.  

In our quest to attract Bluebirds, we often overlook the sheer magnificence of the Tree Swallow. They swoop gracefully across open fields, lakes and marshes hunting insects. The dark blue-green plumage on the head and back of the male Tree Swallow shimmers with an iridescent aqua tint in the sunlight. They build lovely, neat nests — always lined with a delicate layer of white feathers that gently envelop 5 or 6 creamy white eggs. Other than sometimes usurping a box meant for a Bluebird, the two species live in harmony as neighbors.  

Monitoring the nest boxes is a necessary task, checking to make sure all is well and that the nest has not been predated by other birds, flying squirrels or snakes (yes – all these can kill birds inside the boxes, or steal or eat the eggs!).  Invasive birds sometimes build a new nest right on top. It is important to check the boxes in the middle of the day when the parents are usually out hunting for food, but sometimes they are unavoidably still sitting on their nests. The proper technique is to approach the box slowly, carefully knocking on the side and staying clear of the entrance, to warn the mom and give her the chance to fly out. Bluebirds will almost always fly out immediately if they are inside — but tree Swallows Moms stay put and hold still as a stone.  They are camouflaged by the feathers lining the nest and I have mistakenly touched the bird thinking that perhaps she was dead, as sadly sometimes happens — then I feel the warmth and know all is well — and still the brave Mom stays put.  

At our headquarters, Inlet Pond County Park we have 3 new nest boxes recently constructed and mounted by NFAS volunteer Michael Kimmelman.  While we haven’t attracted any Bluebirds to date, I recently walked over to one of the boxes just as a male Tree Swallow flew past towards it, holding a white feather in his beak — and there was his mate, perched on top of the box.  And that made me every bit as happy.  

Here is a link to listen to Tree Swallow songs and calls:

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tree_Swallow/sounds

After four years of year-round work, native plant species are proliferating at Inlet Pond County Park!

I became a NFAS Board Member and started doing trail maintenance in the summer of 2021, when the pandemic allowed me to work remotely. I was dumbstruck by the amount of privet, Oriental bittersweet and other invasives along the trails. Looking back at old newsletters from the early 2000’s, it was apparent that invasives had been a problem for decades. 

Privet removal started in earnest after the December 2021 privet survey conducted by then Landscape Committee member and now Board Member Andy Senesac, a Ph.D. in Weed Science at Cornell Cooperative Extension-Suffolk. That survey counted over 12,000 privets in 100-foot long segments within 5 feet of either side of the trails.

As head of the Trail Maintenance Subcommittee, and assisted by Board Member Carol Edwards, other volunteers over the years, and part-time landscaping helper Oscar Membrano, we work 5 hours every Saturday morning, 52 weeks a year. Fall and winter focus on invasive removal, while spring and summer are occupied by mowing and weedwacking the trail floors. 

In May of 2023, after two winters of privet removal, Dr. Senesac counted the privets again – only 1,000. So a 90% reduction, or at least 11,000 removed. I think we have taken out thousands more than that, because in many cases we go further than 5 feet alongside the trails. We focused on the larger privets first, to prevent them producing berries and seeds. Some were up to 20 feet tall and wide and had to be chainsawed down. We cut the stumps as low to the ground as possible and cover with dirt to hasten fungal breakdown. Smaller ones are hand-pulled or weed-wrenched.

Suffolk County Parks Department applied for a NYS Department of Conservation permit for us to control invasive phragmites around Inlet Pond, a New York-protected wetland. Cutting the stalks down to 2-3 feet at the height of their growth, when flowering, during their translocation phase (mid-August through September) prevents them from moving nutrients from their stalks to their rhizomes for the winter, severely weakening them the next growing season. It also prevents the spread of seeds.

The most rewarding part of this volunteer work is uncovering native species that had previously been hidden by thick vines and brambles, seeing trees flourishing after strangling vines have been removed, and seeing small, inches-high tree saplings and bushes start to grow in areas with more sunlight and space where privet have been removed.

First, we started uncovering mature specimens of native species already existing in the park. They had been overcome and hidden from sight by privets, multiflora roses and other invasives. These include a small American holly near the juncture of the Black and Blue trails, a large American holly near the viewing platform, a highbush blueberry, some silky dogwoods, serviceberries, some arrowwood viburnums, common elderberries, and a large old male winterberry. The Landscape Committee planted two more donated adult American holly near the small original one, and we planted some female winterberries near the male, and a silky dogwood near the other silky dogwoods. A year after planting the new holly bushes, we found over 150 holly seedlings nearby, most only a few inches tall. Where phragmites were cut down, the swamp rose mallows, with their pink hibiscus-like blossoms, have been rapidly reseeding and spreading in the brackish Inlet Pond edges.

Other existing native trees and bushes that became more visible include staghorn sumac, smooth sumac, northern spicebush, sassafras, and various species of oak including black, white, and northern red. Just this spring, new tree saplings are sprouting up, including shagbark hickory, pignut hickory, butternut, black walnut, oaks, black cherry, and red maple. We sometimes surround these with wire fences or “cages” as we call them, that serve several purposes – protect from deer browse, keep invasive Japanese honeysuckle vines off, prevent us from weedwacking them, and most importantly, demarcate them so we can find them again. With a grant from the National Audubon Society, we also planted four white oak trees (about 10 feet tall) in late 2024. Besides the several species of goldenrod, patches of New York fern and sensitive fern are spreading, and other native plants we are suddenly seeing more of, like jewelweed. 

Though I do not have any proof, I think there are more birds in the park now than 4 years ago. They seem to like the open edges. Early one morning I saw 3 great horned owls at the same time. I’ve seen green herons, turtles and frogs at Prentice Pond and great egret at Inlet Pond. Two weeks ago, standing on the viewing platform, I saw three muskrats swimming in Inlet Pond, my first time seeing them.

The Importance of Bug Habitats

By Phoebe Faint

Even though a lot of people hate bugs, without them we could not have birds, flowers, or farms. For my Girl Scout Gold Award, I am going to be working with the Audubon Society to create bug habitats along the trail system at Inlet Pond County Park. These habitats will provide a new home for the local bugs and ensure that they will be able to contribute to the ecosystem of the park and pollinate the plants. This is an important issue not just on Long Island, but worldwide, as bug populations have been rapidly declining, as much as by 45% over the last 40 years according to the University of California. My bug houses will provide a place for bugs to live and grow their populations. When the project is complete, the bugs will have ten or more homes made from recycled and biodegradable materials reused from beach cleanups. On Long Island, many people have grass lawns with pesticides and very few places for bugs to survive. Part of my mission is for people to see my bug houses and be inspired to make their own, or even just to cut down on the amount of pesticides they use. Making bug houses can be entirely free (because you can use plants from your backyard, like branches and pine cones) and it can be a fun activity, especially for kids who like nature. If you want to protect birds, make sure you are protecting the bugs as well. 

Everybody Eats When They Come to My House*

By Ellen Birenbaum

I have a pet peeve about the idea of “attracting” birds to my garden. It makes me think of fast-food commercials and strip highways with neon-colored signs vying for attention so that people stop by the drive-through window and purchase an order of soda and fries. Surely my garden has to offer more than attracting birds for a bad meal. Providing native plants suitable to my ecoregion is the way I’ve forged a much deeper relationship with birds and insects. However, any discussion about native plants and birds is really a discussion about keeping pollinators and insect populations healthy. This article concentrates on insects. (For information regarding pollinators see Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/plants-for-pollinators).

Native plants are plants that historically or currently are present in a particular ecosystem because of natural selection. The key element in understanding native plants, birds and insects is that these life forms have evolved in a particular place long enough to establish special relationships with other living things in that particular place. Introduced plants live outside their native distribution range, brought into a region by human activity, either intentionally or inadvertently. Invasive plants are Introduced plants that spread naturally and cause ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage in their new location. These plants have not established relationships with insects or birds that live in the new habitat. Indeed, due to competitive advantages, invasive plants displace native plants from their habitats, and the vital relationships between insects, birds and plants in that environment are lost.

The strong relationships between plants, insects and birds are due to coevolution, a naturally occurring phenomenon in which two or more species evolve by reciprocally affecting each other. It can only occur when different species have close ecological interactions. Plants, insects and birds have coevolved over millions of years, and it is the specialized relationships between these life forms that make the world go ‘round. Birds eat the nectar, buds, berries and fruits of plants; birds pollinate and spread the seeds of plants; birds depend on insects for their own food and for feeding their young. Plants depend on birds to pollinate and spread their seeds and on insects to pollinate their flowers. Insects are the basis of all food webs, feeding birds and animals. Many insects need plants as a site to lay eggs and to provide nutrients for larval development and feeding. These plants are called host plants, allowing insects to complete their life cycle.

Another important concept to understand is that the relationship between plant-eating insects and the plants they eat is highly specialized: 90% of plant-eating insects will only eat plants with which they share an evolutionary history. In other words, without native plants these insects will starve.

Creating healthy habitats for birds involves providing birds with the foods they need for survival.  Birds’ diets differ by season.  In general, birds eat insects in the summer months and seeds, nuts, fruits and berries in the autumn and winter.  Insect eggs and pupae may also be eaten in the winter. 

The Black-capped Chickadee forages mostly by hopping on twigs and branches and sometimes flying out to catch insects in mid-air.  Its diet consists of insects, seeds and berries.  The summer diet is mostly caterpillars, insects, some spiders, snails and other invertebrates; only 10% of the summer diet is seeds or fruit.  In the winter, seeds and fruits comprise approximately 50% of its diet. Another example is the Baltimore Oriole, which eats insects, berries and nectar.  It forages for insects among tree foliage and shrubs, occasionally flying out to catch insects in midair and takes nectar from flowers.  In summer it feeds mostly on insects, especially caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers, wasps, spiders, and snails. The winter diet is primarily berries.   Our local New World sparrows, the Dark-eyed Junco and Eastern Towhee, forage mostly on the ground, frequently scratching leaf-litter. Their diet consists primarily of seeds, insects and some berries.  Most of their summer diet consists of insects. The winter diet is primarily the seeds of grasses. 

To provide this diversity of food in our gardens, we need to plant native ground covers, flowers, grasses and woody plants which will also provide shelter and nesting sites.  Pruning and deadheading grasses and herbaceous plants and seasonal cleanups of leaves and debris will adversely affect bird and insect populations. Application of organic or synthetic pesticides to our gardens in the mistaken belief that it will kill mosquitos and ticks without harming other insects is a major factor in the decline of our native insect and pollinator populations. 

Insects such as caterpillars, beetles, true bugs (e.g.  grasshoppers, and crickets) are protein-rich foods that most songbirds eat all their lives.   Spiders, centipedes and snails are also foraged.  Grasses, vines, and flowering plants provide nesting sites for insects.  To support spiders in our gardens, leave tall grasses, flower buds, and shrubs undisturbed.

Caterpillars are the larval stage of the order Lepidoptera, comprising butterflies and moths.  Ninety-seven percent of North American terrestrial birds rear their young on these soft-bodied insects which are high in proteins, fats and carotenoids. Nestlings eat full caterpillar meals 30-40 times daily.  Research by Drs. Douglas Tallamy and Desiree Narango has shown that native plants support more species of Lepidoptera than introduced plants, and that gardens with more than 30% introduced plants will not be successful sites for breeding and raising chicks. Of interest is the finding that trees and shrubs support more Lepidoptera than herbaceous plants. Only about 5% of our local plants host 70 – 75% of the local caterpillar species.  These hyper-productive plants are called keystone plants.  Oaks rank number one in the number of caterpillar species hosted, followed by prunus spp. (plums), cherry trees, willows, birches, and poplars. 

Snails, worms, slugs, and other invertebrates are rich in protein and high in calcium which is essential for egg laying. These invertebrates live in ground covers, the top layer of soil, in decaying vegetation, leaf mulch, tree bark, logs, and woody debris. New World sparrows, thrushes, and wrens forage in these microhabitats.

Available in the early spring and summer months, nectar is a sweet source of carbohydrates eaten by hummingbirds, Baltimore orioles, woodpeckers, butterflies, and pollinators. Nectar is produced by wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and bee balm (Monarda fistulosa).  Columbine and monarda will self-seed.  

Seeds and nuts are rich in protein, carbohydrates and fats and are a vital source of food during the winter.  Seeds are found in grasses, both warm season and cool season species. Grasses that are especially valuable winter food sources are little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), and purple love grass (Erogastis spectabilis).  Mourning doves and New World sparrows feed on grass seeds.  Pines, spruces and firs produce cone seeds, another food source.  Oak acorns are a favorite of bluejays. 

Herbaceous flowering plants that produce the majority of winter seeds are in the botanical family Asteraceae, the sunflower or aster family.  These seeds ripen late in the summer season. Examples are asters (Symphyotrichum sp. & Eurybia sp.) such as New England aster and New York aster, wild sunflowers (Helianthus sp.), blazing star (Liatris sp.), Black- and Brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia sp.), coneflowers (Echinacea sp.), goldenrods (Solidago sp.), Ironweeds (Vernonia sp.) tickseeds (Coreopsis sp.), and beebalm (Monarda sp.). Seed size varies, so different birds will feed on different seeds.  Northern cardinals will feed on sunflower and coneflower seeds while goldfinches and New World sparrows will feed on the smaller seeds of Brown-eyed Susans, goldenrods, beebalm, and tickseeds. Nuthatches, woodpeckers, Dark-eyed juncos, chickadees, woodpecker and titmice also eat seeds.  American goldfinch chicks are fed regurgitated matter mostly made up of seeds.

The fruits or berries of woody plants ripen in different seasons and differ in the amounts of sugar and fatty acids they contain.  Sweet berries predominate in the spring and summer; the serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) and wild cherry (Prunus serotina) are examples.  The serviceberry feeds American Robins, Cedar waxwings, and Northern cardinals, in addition to many other songbirds. Calorie-rich berries ripen in the autumn just in time for the fall migration.  Autumn berries are found on the spicebush, red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea), sumacs (Rhus sp.) and elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), which feeds the American Robin, Eastern Bluebird, Northern Mockingbird, Yellow Warbler, and Gray Catbird. Autmn berries persisting into winter provide less calories but don’t turn rancid in on the vine.  Examples are the black and red chokeberries (Aronia sp.), winterberries (Ilex verticillate). which feed American Robins, bluebirds, and Cedar waxwings, northern bayberry (Morella pensylvanica), which feeds overwintering Tree Swallows, viburnums (Viburnum sp.), and eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana).  The chokeberry is a favorite of deer and will not last long in an unfenced garden. These trees and shrubs also provide shelter and nesting sites for birds.

In addition to planting native groundcovers, flowers and woody plants to diversify food sources for birds and insects, combining these elements in our gardens optimizes the different types of birds that will come to our gardens. The vertical diversity of ground covers, taller grasses and plants, shrubs and creeping vines allows birds to move from one layer to another while foraging, roosting and nesting. Ground foragers such as wrens feed on insects but also prefer the dense leaf cover of shrubs for protection from weather and predators. Chickadees and finches are active in shrubs but also forage in trees. When choosing herbaceous plants for the garden, choose plants of different types and heights.

Gardening with native plants is one of the best ways to support insects and feed birds. Choose native plants wisely, focusing on plants that feed birds throughout the year: seed-producing plants, berry-producing woody plants, and host plants for Lepidoptera. If you eschew pesticides, remove invasive plants and go native, you will be truly able to say that “everybody eats when they come to my house.”

*Song performed by Cab Calloway, 1947; written by Jeanne Burn

Thank you for reading out Newsletter! Our monthly bird walks will continue throughout the summer, offering a chance to connect with resident species and learn more about the birds that call the North Fork home year-round. We also invite you to get involved in our growing volunteer programs — from trail maintenance and native plant care at Inlet Pond County Park to our Shorebird Outreach, which helps educate people about the importance of protecting vulnerable nesting sites along our beaches.