Stewards rescue juvenile herring gull

So grateful to get a knock on my door to hear about how two of my neighbors rescued a juvenile herring gull struggling with a hook stuck in it’s mouth.

– Justine Kibbe September 30, 2017

Members of the Fishers Island Conservancy and another dozen volunteers met early Sunday morning on September 24 at the Community Center. With binoculars in hand and dressed for a long walk they headed out. Learn more about the 48 separate species that were observed in the Summary by Adam Mitchell, PhD candidate at the University of Delaware.

2017 Fall Migratory Bird Survey Report Summary

by Adam Mitchell, PhD candidate at the University of Delaware

The Fishers Island Conservancy’s annual fall migratory bird survey occurred on September 24th, 2017. The survey consisted of a series of point counts, 15 in total, dispersed across the island at every half-mile interval. At each point, birds are recorded by sight and sound for five minutes, permitting a rapid-fire survey to address questions about the number of birds and species of birds using the island as migratory habitat. Participants include trained and amateur birdwatchers and is open to the public.

This year, a total of 48 species of bird were recorded for the survey. The greatest number of species recorded during the survey (9 species) occurred at point 1 (Race Point), point 4 (Ocean View Ave), and point 15 (Money Pond). The species of bird most frequently observed during the survey was the gray catbird (11 of 15 points). The most abundant bird species observed during the survey was also the gray catbird (35 individuals).

The survey includes one threatened species (northern harrier) and two species of concern (osprey, sharp-shinned hawk) for the state of New York. Given the island’s proximity to the coast of Connecticut, we also report bird species that are classified as endangered, threatened, or species of concern for that state. We report two endangered species (northern harrier, sharp-shinned hawk), and four species of concern (American kestrel, brown thrasher, northern parula, saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow). We detected 5 species of warbler (common yellowthroat, northern parula, prairie warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, and yellow warbler).

A complete list of species:

American crow
American goldfinch
American kestrel
American robin
Barred owl
Belted kingfisher
Black-capped chickadee
Black vulture
Blue jay
Brown thrasher
Canada goose
Carolina wren
Cedar waxwing
Common grackle
Common raven
Common yellowthroat
Double-crested cormorant
Downy woodpecker
Eastern kingbird
Eastern phoebe
Eastern towhee
European starling
Gray catbird
Greater black-backed gull
Herring gull
House finch
Mallard
Mourning dove
Mute swan
Northern cardinal
Northern flicker
Northern harrier
Northern mockingbird
Northern parula
Osprey
Prairie warbler
Red-bellied woodpecker
Red-wing blackbird
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow
Sharp-shinned hawk
Song sparrow
Tree swallow
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
White-eyed vireo
Yellow-rumped warbler
Yellow warbler

Autumn Bird Survey

Autumn Bird Survey

Out in the field I caught up with Conservancy’s Autumn Bird Migration Survey and chatted with birds of a feather Adam Mitchell & Will Almeida; discovering 48 bird species in a day that depend on our Island’s healthy native habitat.

– Audio Chat by Justine Kibbe September 24, 2017

In the photo, the group obsessed over a variety of bird called a brown thrasher.
Photo by: A. Sargent

Fishers Island by Vincent Scarano

The History and Natural Beauty That is Fishers Island

By Carolyn Battista / Photos by Vincent Scarano
INKct Magazine, September 2017

Walking along the Fishers Island shore, we saw the natural tidal wrack lines of washed-up eel grass and kelp. Heading inland, we spotted big signs about invaders, like the awful black swallow wort. We – photographer and writer – were here to look around and learn a bit about this quiet, mostly private little island.

We focused especially on the history of the island and on the work to protect its land and wildlife, today and forever. The U.S. Army once operated Fort H. G. Wright here to deal with our nation’s enemies. Now the Fishers Island Conservancy works here to vanquish environmental enemies” – black swallow wort and other invasive plants – and to replace them with native species. The Conservancy, which has long looked after island land and waters, hopes that islanders will get behind the effort and that others can learn from it.

Fishers Island by Vincent ScaranoThe island, about a mile wide and nine miles long, is a “hamlet” of Southold, New York, although it’s much closer to Connecticut. In summer, its population is a few thousand; the yacht clubs and golf course are busy. Offseason, the population is about 230. The island’s long “east end” is a gated neighborhood; the “west end” has a small village area, tree-lined streets, the ferry dock, a museum, a few year-round businesses, and a few more seasonal ones. There are churches, a health center, a volunteer fire department, and the school, pre-K-grade 12, where about half the 70-some students come from the mainland. (Commuting kids on the ferry said they love the school. “I’m intellectually challenged,” one said, noting science programs. “I know everyone’s name,” another said).

Besides students, the 45-minute ride from New London carries people who live, vacation, or work on the island. It docks shortly after passing by Race Rock Light, a beacon since 1879 on the treacherous waters off the far western end of the island. We were met at the dock by Justine Kibbe, naturalist for the Fishers Island Conservancy. She and Pierce Rafferty, director of the Henry L. Ferguson Museum, would be our excellent guides.

Growing up, Justine spent summers on the island, enjoying long, free days of swimming, biking, fishing, exploring. After spending some 25 years away, including time in Alaska and on the remote Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, she returned in 2011 to live here. She figured the Pribilofs prepared her for year-round island life, not just nice summers. During stark winters the wind blows, and lights across the water seem distant. But, she said, “There’s a community here,” and she’s part of it.

The Conservancy works to preserve and protect the island’s natural environment, to advocate for it, and to educate people. In her job, Justine monitors ecosystems, looks for trends over time, and records what she finds. She digs into the island’s traditional knowledge, posts island photos and field notes, and shares her experiences. She wants islanders to know and savor what’s there.

On our walk, she talked about the rich eel grass meadows within Long Island and Fishers Island sounds. Having documented a rise in recreational fishing vessels, she wants people to be aware that keeping abundant fish populations means not damaging eel grass.

She also works with kids. “Leave your phones at home!” she tells them. “This is life.” In her Sentinel program, she mentors future stewards of the environment. “They help me monitor,” she said. On what she calls the “Sanctuary of Sands,” she and the kids “circle up, sit still, observe, and feel privileged to be guests of this natural world.”

Henry Ferguson Museum by Vincent ScaranoWe met Pierce Rafferty at the museum, which has galleries on the island’s pre-history, history, and natural environment and holds the island’s only land trust. On a quick tour, we viewed the exhibit Photographs of Fishers Island, Part One, 1880’s- 1930’s, showing wonderful scenes of island life.

Pierce gave a lively capsule history, starting in the 1640’s when the island was first settled by John Winthrop, Jr. The Winthrops would own it for more than 200 years, most of that time being absentee landlords to tenant farmers. The museum has an original 1734 lease that spells out tenant obligations, like always keeping “one chamber in the best house” for the special use of any visiting Winthrop.

Robert R. Fox bought the island in 1863 and worked to improve its farms. After his sudden death in 1871, speculative proposals for its next use bubbled up. The New York state legislature considered buying the island and moving Sing Sing prison from Ossining to this “better” location.

By the early 1880’s, a little town had developed. Tourism flourished. There was hotel-building, and big steamers brought big crowds. Folks envisioned a “Coney Island of the East.” But In 1889 Edmund and Walton Ferguson—brothers who were successful bankers and businessmen—bought 9/10ths of the island. They put in infrastructure and soon began to develop a more genteel, family-oriented seasonal resort. They bought out existing hotels, banished the steamers, and kept going. They expanded especially the Mansion House hotel (now gone) and built a “cottage colony” around it.

By the 1920’s a new Ferguson generation was putting a Seth Raynor golf course on the east end, where they planned an elite private residential colony of 300-400 homes. “Then comes 1929,” Pierce said. “The crash defines Fishers Island, in that the east end stayed relatively undeveloped.

Island enterprises came and went. Over time clay pits and brick-making, poultry farms, and “the Boroleum factory,” where Boroleum ointment was tubed, all closed. (The museum has the tubing machine in its collections.) Fishing and lobstering are not what they were; Fishers Island oysters are the island’s only export. A small U.S. Navy facility remains on the island. Fort Wright, established in 1900, was a bustling operation through World War Il. Today its old parade grounds are among the sites where the Conservancy battles invasives.

Driving us around, Pierce stopped to chat with a road worker who had a gift for Him – a rusted old horseshoe that he’d found. An artifact for the museum! A guy in a truck waved. He was Steve Malinowski, owner of Fishers Island Oyster Farm, who asked, did Pierce want to help with tarps? Steve and other volunteers were laying tarps over a section of porcelain berry, an especially invasive plant.

Later, I talked with Dr. Douglas Tallamy of the University of Delaware, who’s aiding the Conservancy’s work to stamp out invasives and replace them with native plants. “Invasives are ecological disasters! They wipe out other plants,” he said. “Other non-native species are also unsatisfactory,” he added, “because they don’t support enough of the insects that birds in the area eat.”

Dr. Tallamy said that remove-and-replace strategies are “effective only if everybody gets on board.” He urges property owners to take care, weed out invasives, and use attractive native alternatives to plants that may look and smell nice, but can harm the life around them. On this island, there’s less chance that alien invaders will just come back and more chance that a dedicated community can make the project succeed.

I also talked with Tom Sargent, president of the Conservancy, who has high hopes. “It’s important that we restore the balance of nature,” he said. “This can be an educational template, not just for Fishers Island.”

crows

crows

– Field Note by Justine Kibbe September 18, 2017.

* Come join the Conservancy Fall Bird Migration Survey. Sunday Sept 24th @ 8am

Summer fades now. Tawny dune grasses bend and bow towards brilliance- Monarchs that float and morph between orange and red maple leaves.

Most families have packed up here on Island, boarding ferries, migrating across the Sound, perhaps heading south or who knows where, but bound to return as trees promise to bud next year.

While shore birds and waders like 6 American Oyster Catchers of South beach, 2 Willets along Big Stony spit, Hay Harbor and several Egrets near 14th hole and bridge up at Big Club will soon all follow suit and leave Island too.

But then many bird families fly in, fly thru or stay on here. And the Fishers Island Conservancy counts on it (literally!) and so can Islanders.

The Blue Jays-there’s a talkative bunch heading east behind navy fencing; the birds sounding alarm from pine stands there, and more chiming within the conifer woods nearing Gray Gulls.

Listen, pretty much everywhere now-open grass lands like Parade Grounds, brushy habitat around Isabella cliffside, and the Northern Cardinal rules – “tik…tik…twik…”

Look up and down between sun shadows within lichen covered tree trunks that hug Oyster Pond and see Northern Flickers and Downy Woodpeckers poking and scratching for ants.

It is wonderful to become familiar with birds here and quite an opportunity.

Back in my neck of the woods over the years a band of now 8 crows has kindly adopted me. I think they must know I have an affinity towards their clan. Each morning awakens with quite a raucous-especially with coveted autumn fruit dropping to the ground. Sunny afternoons I happen upon the squawking squadron waiting for takeoff; their jet black feathers with the look of warm upon a windswept runway. Usually by the time the 4:15 ferry arrives for Island workforce and students, the crows have circled round to preen atop a chimney and bid farewell till the morning.

Come join a lead team of expert birders from University of Delaware take tally of bird species from several point to point spots west end to east end. Learn even to recognize unique calls of each species, bring binoculars and we’ll all see what the migration survey says!

PS. We’re meeting 8 am at the *Community Center.

 

Swallows

Come join a lead team of expert birders from University of Delaware take tally of bird species from several point-to-point spots west end to east end. Learn even to recognize unique calls of each species, bring binoculars and we’ll all see what the migration survey says!

TIME: Sunday Sept 24th @ 8am

LOCATION: Meeting at the Community Center

caterpillars

Happenings on the Parade Ground: Tent Caterpillars – part of the natural process.

Look around the Parade Ground and the Fishers Island Conservancy’s Demonstration Garden next to the Movie Theater and you will see many nests of tent caterpillars in the cherry trees. The caterpillars and their tents get bigger and bigger and there are fewer and fewer leaves on the cherry trees. Should we be concerned and rush out to eliminate these pests? No! Sit back and let the birds do the work.

This came in from the Conservancy’s naturalist, Adam Mitchell:

forest tent caterpillar“I wouldn’t be concerned about the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. These are native species that are feeding on native plants (mostly cherry when I was on the island last week). These caterpillars, in turn, will provide food for breeding birds like orioles in the parade grounds and help support whip-poor-wills when they turn into moths. Tent caterpillars can defoliate young trees, especially ornamentals, but native trees will recover within a month (just part of the natural process!).”

As Tom Sargent pointed out, Baltimore Orioles eat them, as do Blue Jays, Chickadees and Nuthatches. The orioles have a unique way to consume the tent caterpillars – they skin them! This helps get through the all the hair the caterpillars have. The adult caterpillars, however, are actively consumed by many birds and bats, so they are a welcome addition to the island.

Article and Photos Provided by JT Ahrens.

In the early 2000s, feral cats were a huge problem on Fishers Island, with numbers estimated to be in the hundreds. Contributing to the problem were residents and visitors who allowed their un-neutered cats to roam and breed, or left them behind when departing the Island.

Feral cats can destroy songbird populations, plus there were rumors of Island feral cat attacks on pet cats and dogs, and aggressive behavior toward children.

Responding to the problem, the Fishers Island Conservancy developed a humane response by instituting a volunteer-managed program of trap, neuter and release on the Island’s West End. Additionally, birth control pills were available to caretakers of the three main colonies of cats.

Feral cat “hot spots” were said to be the Transfer Station, the “ordinance” building near Silver Eel Pond, North Hill around to Walsh Park, near the American Legion, Pickett landfill, west of the first hole of Hay Harbor Club golf course, behind the Z&S Station, and several locations an the East End.

Fishers Island no longer has a feral cat issue. After a few years of successful catch, neuter and release, it is thought that coyotes brought an end to the problem.