On the Wing

It’s hard to mistake the great egret: lengthy yellow bill, long black legs, large white body in between. They have sinewy necks, sometimes stretched straight, other times tucked into a squat S, as when they’re flying.

Cardinals, among our earliest singer each spring, are so familiar you might forget to appreciate them, but a century ago they were rare in New York.

Red-breasted mergansers rely on the open waters of our winter bays and harbors from November until April. They’ll be there if you walk anywhere along the bay side of the South Fork, between Southampton and Montauk. While they prefer salt water, they also frequent Hook Pond, Sagaponack Pond, and Georgica Pond.

You don’t need to go deep into the woods to find a red-bellied woodpecker, but if you're looking for a distinctive red belly, you won't find it. Instead, its head is red, which explains why people often misidentify it as the red-headed woodpecker, which hardly shows up on Long Island.

It’s hard to decouple the turkey from Thanksgiving, but long before we paired turkeys with mashed potatoes and stuffing and turned them into a national symbol, they were going about their business, hanging out in gangs, flipping leaves, and browsing the ground for nuts.

A large group of tree swallows is called a gulp, which proves ornithologists are not without humor. Before the leaves change, gulps of swallows crowd our beaches. At Mecox Inlet, Sagaponack Pond, and the dunes that circle Napeague Harbor, hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of tree swallows collect.

American oystercatchers, which congregate in the marshes of our barrier beaches before flying south, are about the size of crows, and stout, with heavy white bellies, chocolate-colored wings, and pale pinkish legs. They wear a black executioner’s hood and have a long blood-orange oyster knife of a bill and yellow eyes circled by red eye rings.

Despite the confusion and tragedy of American life in 2022, they somehow return each spring; like flying foil-wrapped gifts come to life. And now, as early as this week, the males will depart from our area to begin their largely daytime migrations south. This is one of the most entertaining weeks to “feeder watch,” as they defend their last sips.

Least terns are properly named, they’re our smallest tern, and thin. They slice through the air, buoyant and bouncy, on clipped wingbeats, patrolling the waters below. They’re very vocal. Their call is high-pitched and squeaky, with a sharp grating quality. Learn it, and you will often hear them before you see them.

The scientific name of the whip-poor-will, Antrostomus vociferus, is spot-on. According to “Birds of America,” edited by T. Gilbert Pearson, “the first word . . . means ‘cave mouth’ and the second . . . ‘strong voice.’ ”

As long ago as 1936, when T. Gilbert Pearson published “Birds of America,” purple martins were almost exclusively dependent on man-made housing. Here on the East End, they arrive in early April to the houses waiting for them and by Labor Day they're gone.

Scarlet tanagers breed in forest interiors. Take a walk on the Sprig Tree Trail in Sag Harbor, or along the Round Pond Trail where they sing and breed. You'll also find them at the Grace Estate, Hither Woods, and Barcelona Neck. The trick is to find a large expansive stretch of woods and listen.