April Showers And May Flowers

Signs of spring during March and April have been largely related to wildlife — the arrival of migratory birds and fish and vocalizations of amphibians at their breeding pools and songbirds establishing nesting territories — while our native plants showed little change from their winter look. That changed dramatically last week.

Although our total precipitation last month, following the trend for 2021 so far, was some 10 percent below average for April, those April showers brought May flowers. Among the more noticeable are the white blooms of the flowering dogwood, shadbush and beach plum, and sassafras’s yellow flowers.

Less conspicuous are the flowers that have not evolved to attract insect pollinators but rely on the wind to transport their eye-watering and sneeze-inducing pollen. On Long Island, this group is dominated by the oaks, whose pendulant, pollen-bearing flowers are quite visible in the canopy, and the pitch pine.

Among the least conspicuous of our late-April to early-May blooms are the tiny pinkish white flowers of the ubiquitous bearberry, growing like mats in our dune-heath habitat, and the equally diminutive greenish yellow flowers of the American holly that produce, in contrast, very conspicuous bright red berries.

Most of our ferns are in the process of unfurling leaves that, at this point, are called fiddleheads. Our native trees and shrubs are also sprouting leaves, the exception being the tupelo, or black pepperidge. Despite the warming weather and longer days, it remains in its winter slumber. On the other end of the growing season, this quite striking tree will be the first to move chlorophyll from its leaves, exposing its brilliant scarlet red fall colors.

Often found growing among the tupelos in our swamp habitat is the red maple. It has already completed flowering, been pollinated and produced red-colored, winged seeds.

Three-to-four-inch-long, spaghetti-thin, juvenile American eels are still being spotted moving up tidal creeks. The females will work their way up into freshwater ponds where they will spend up to 20 years maturing before making the return trip to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. What an amazing creature!

The mass Atlantic menhaden die-offs recorded along the Eastern Seaboard earlier this spring, and last December, was not the usual case of schools depleting dissolved oxygen levels in shallow embayments, but the result of a bacterial infection. The culprit, Vibrio anguillarum, is a naturally occurring marine bacteria. It is not known why it caused menhaden to swim erratically and die. Research by scientists on this incident is ongoing.

Bald eagles have completed their egg incubation period and are now busy feeding their rapidly growing chicks. Now through fledging (when the chicks can fly) is also a very sensitive time in their breeding season, and disturbing the nesting area is not only illegal, but shows poor judgment. As a monitor of two of the nests on the South Fork, I’ve noticed that the biggest problem with disturbance is, surprisingly, birders. Specifically, birders with serious camera equipment who just have to get that National Geographic shot to post on their Facebook page.

While trying to get a head count of the chicks last week, I saw the on-duty adult leave its roosting perch and circle around the nest, chirping loudly and clearly agitated. Five minutes later I saw the cause of the alarm: a woman walking out of the woods with a 16-inch-long camera and lens strapped around her neck. Her car was parked right next to the “Eagle Nest Area: stay out” sign. Of course, she feigned ignorance of her indiscretion.

Speaking of photos, Mike Zunno sent me a beautiful series of otter photos taken at a preserve in Huntington last week. Other than photos from remote trail cameras, it is unusual to be in the right place during daylight hours to get a good shot of an otter. This one seems to have been curious enough to pose!

Meanwhile, there are lots of reports of new osprey nests as our local fish hawk population continues to increase. At a recent meeting organized by Group for the East End President Bob DeLuca, the idea of a Long Island-wide osprey monitoring program was introduced. It was agreed that this highly visible and relatively easy species to monitor (nest sites, number of chicks and number of fledges) would make an excellent program. The data collected —for example, trends in fledgling productivity — could be used to identify potential problems in our marine waters, such as a lack of suitable prey during the breeding season.

We felt that the project should be implemented by dividing the island into smaller regions with a designated environmental organization and their volunteers responsible for a specific region. If you or your organization would like to be involved, please contact me.

Happy spring!