Species Spotlight: Spring Shorebirds
Spring has sprung and summer is on its way! With the arrival of warmer weather and longer days, comes our seasonal shorebird visitors! Each year, migratory birds utilize Long Island’s beautiful coastal habitats as vital nesting grounds for their breeding season.
Let’s take a closer look at some of our seasonal visitors, and keep an eye out for them while you’re out enjoying the warmer weather!
American oystercatcher with lunch
Identifying features of the American oystercatcher
American Oystercatcher
Scientific Name: Haematopus palliatus
Identification: A strikingly colored, crow-sized shorebird that’s most identifiable by its large, orange-red bill and yellow eye with red eyering.
Diet: Primarily bivalve mollusks such as oysters, clams, and mussels. May also feed on limpets, jellies, sea stars, sea urchins, marine worms, and crustaceans.
Habitat: Barrier beaches, salt marshes, and oyster beds
Find this Species: Try looking for oystercatchers at low tide. As the tide falls, productive feeding grounds are exposed and you’re more likely to find an oystercatcher probing the shoreline in search of a tasty meal!
Interesting Facts: The oystercatcher was historically known as the “sea pie” and was renamed in the 1700s when naturalists observed this species eating oysters.
American Oystercatchers are the only birds in their environment with the ability to open large mollusks! (Aside from large gulls that drop shellfish onto hard surfaces, such as the pavement.)
Osprey
Scientific Name: Pandion haliaetus
Identification: A very large, distinctive hawk that is brown above and white below (they are generally whiter than most raptors). A prominent white head with a broad brown stripe that goes through the eye. When in flight, ospreys make an M-shape when seen from below.
Diet: Almost exclusively fish - which is why it’s also called the fish hawk! On rare occasions, they have been observed feeding on birds, snakes, and small mammals.
Habitat: Any expanse of shallow, fish-filled water (rivers, lakes, ponds, salt marshes, beaches, estuaries, etc.)
Find this Species: You can find their large, stick nests in trees or on top of platforms across Long Island - especially near a body of water with an abundance of fish! They usually start arriving in mid-March and stay through October each year.
Interesting Facts:
Unlike other hawks, the osprey has a reversible outer toe! This coupled with specialized barbs on their feet, allows them to grasp their slippery prey even better.
Osprey will reposition their catch in flight so that it faces forward, making it more streamlined for transport!
Osprey populations crashed from the 1950s to the 1970s due to the poisoning effects of pesticides. Since the 1972 U.S. DDT ban, populations have increased each year - making the osprey a conservation success symbol!
A single osprey can log 160,000 migration miles (or more) during its 15 to 20-year lifespan.
Osprey preparing to dive
Osprey nest
Osprey with prey
Male red-winged blackbird
Female red-winged blackbird
Red-winged blackbird nest
Red-winged Blackbird
Scientific Name: Agelaius phoeniceus
Identification: One of the most abundant and boldly colored birds of North America, male red-winged blackbirds are often identifiable by the bold red and yellow shoulder patches (their body is primarily black). Females, however, are often mistaken for sparrows because they are mostly brown, heavily streaked, and have a white eyebrow. Many females will have a reddish or yellow wash around their pointy bill, and/or a reddish hue along their wing edge. Similarly sized to a robin.
Diet: Insects in the summer and seeds in the winter
Habitat: Coastal wetlands and marshes during the breeding season, but often congregate in agricultural fields and grassland in the fall and winter.
Find this Species: Listen for that unique conk-la-ree song of the male blackbird. You’ll often find them perched atop cattails in the marsh, or even along telephone wires in your coastal neighborhood! Females usually stay lower in marsh vegetation as they hunt for insects and tend to their nest (open, cup-style nest that is lashed to standing vegetation).
Interesting Facts:
Males are highly territorial. They spend more than a quarter of daylight hours in territory defense mode!
The red-winged blackbird is a polygynous species, meaning that one male will mate and share territory with more than one female. Females also frequently mate with males other than the territory-holder, resulting in clutches of unknown paternity.
Red-winged blackbirds are closely related to Grackles, Orioles, and Brown-headed cowbirds.