President’s Message Summer 2023

Hello my little birding friends! Hope you are all well and enjoying the birds. A lot of the spring and summer birds are coming back. The Ospreys are all sitting in their nests. They are everywhere! A friend saw a Hummingbird around Mother’s Day and I think I saw a female Goldfinch. It flew by so fast I wasn’t sure. My mom always says, “Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken!” Ha! I wish the Grackles would take a hike. They keep eating all my birdseed. All the birds will be making their nests soon too. I know I wrote about the nests in another newsletter, but I still can’t fathom how they know how to make the nest they were born in without being shown. We had our yearly dinner at Captain Bills, which drew a lot of people. It was a nice evening and our speaker from Quogue Wildlife Refuge was great. Thank goodness for them as they save and help so many animals. A big thank you to all the people who donated all the great prizes. And, a really big thank you also goes to Annette for planning and making it all work out! 

Helga Merryman will be retiring from the feeder survey. If anyone is interested in taking it over please contact her. Her email is on the back of the newsletter. There are also no bird walks for the summer. Thank you Ken Thompson for planning them all. We had a great one at Central Park. I can’t remember the last walk I did there but it was beautiful with all the big boulders and trees along the paths. We saw a lot of Warblers and other birds. There were a lot of people jogging, walking, and walking their dogs there too. A big thank you to John Gluth for leading us, and the many members who came. He sure knows his birds! We will be having our summer event in June at Brookside County Park so check your emails. This is always a fun event for children and adults. 

I saw a Baltimore Oriole in my yard May 17th. I was so excited I looked up how to make the food for them. It said to melt grape jelly with sugar, water, and the juice from half an orange in a pot. I thought they were attracted to yellow!!! I’ll see how this works out and let you know. We will not be having any meetings this summer, except for the June event at Brookside, but will resume in September. Enjoy your summer and enjoy the birds!!