Hello my little birding friends! Hope you are all well and keeping safe with this horrible coronavirus. I could go on and on about it, but won’t. It’s just been a big inconvenience not being able to do the things we love. We couldn’t celebrate my grandson’s first birthday and my mom’s 90th birthday. And the worst of all, losing family and friends to this virus. My condolences to those of you who have.

Our migraters are back. I’ve been going to the Holtsville Ecology Center to get compost and am greeted by a Baltimore Oriole each time. I love their song. Unlike the Mockingbird who starts singing when I go to my mom’s to help in the garden. Luckily he only sings for a few minutes and moves down the street. Those birds are so annoying and I don’t know how they don’t get a sore throat. Of course, I have one in my yard, again, too. My neighbor Greg had a quail in his yard, which is weird since there’s really no woods in the area, and Mike saw a hummingbird in Miller Place.

The Osprey have kicked out the Bald Eagles who took over their nest in the Sayville cell phone tower. Don’t know where they went, but an Eagle has been seen in my neighborhood. It’s finally time to start planting your flowers for birds and pollinators. It’s important for our ecosystem. I can’t wait to get a Goldfinch and Hummingbird at my feeders and I’ve had an Egret and a Green Heron in my backyard. There must be a Redwing Blackbird nest in the area because they keep attacking the Egret. One time I found a Redwing Blackbird nest in my yard. It was woven in the reeds! I don’t know how they did that. Birds are amazing when making their nests. The things they use and recycle, and the time and patience it must take for some of them to make these nests. Spider webs, lichen, plastic bags, yarn, mud, leaves, sticks, reeds, etc. My question is always why? Why are they all different and how do they know what to use? Of course the answer I am always given is “instinct”! It still never really answers my question when I look up that word!

Amid all the difficulties of this year, GSBAS is still planning forward. Sadly, our annual live animal June meeting is unable to take place in person at Brookside. However, the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays who was scheduled for that meeting will be presenting a fun and informative event via Zoom on June 18th (see GSBAS Events).

You can learn all the details about this event, a July Zoom presentation, a virtual paint class, our 3rd annual festival, Birds of a Feather Flock Together, and our rescheduled May dinner/fundraiser in this newsletter.

Ok folks, be safe, stay well and don’t throw your used rubber gloves and masks anyplace but in the GARBAGE CAN! I can’t, or maybe I can, believe how many gloves I’ve seen left on the ground at shopping centers and in shopping carts! There are a lot of people at the Holtsville Ecology Center walking the trail. While I was there getting compost, a man had walked the trail with his wife and was heading to the recycling bins to throw out their empty water bottles. I thanked him and he said, “Just trying to keep it clean”. I replied, “I wish more people were like you”. P.S. I hope Governor Cuomo doesn’t make the piping plovers stay 6ft. apart and wear masks!

Happy birding,
Jody Banaszak