The BHH sanctuary has many wonderful supporters who help in many ways (watering plants when I'm away; helping supervise visitors; and of course taking extraordinary pictures). One of these has organized a Facebook page: Friends of the Baiting Hollow Hummingbird Sanctuary. Please recognize her great work by "liking" this page. I believe she is also organizing a petition to the Riverhead Town Supervisor, to ask him to keep the sanctuary functioning as it has for 17 augusts) and even perhaps formally withdraw the Notice of Violation (which apparently he does not intend to pursue). See posts for dec 19 and yesterday.
Despite the legal problems we are in good spirits and Claire took some nice pictures this afternoon (I had to work on unblocking drains and fixing water pumps: the usual here). The above one shows a male bahama woodstar at one of our feeders. The next one shows a flock of american coots on Calypso pond. These are the most common birds on the pond at this time of the year. Later, as it dries up in the dry season, they will be placed by stilts, which nest on the mudflats. The last picture shows some parrot fish in the ocean just to the east of Calypso. But you have to look carefully. There's one in the center, about two thirds down the image. You can see a dark form with some green on it. Then there are 2 more to the left of this, again dark to the right and greenish to the left. They graze on the coral which is just below the breaking waves. Because there's a light northeast wind, the water is a bit choppy, which makes the fish difficult to see. But they are quite striking viewed in sunlight even from the beach, they are about 2 feet across. Of course usually to see any fish at all, one has to snorkel. Parrot fish are good eating, but they must be consumed immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment