Great South Bay Audubon Society

10/19/2026

From the Spring 2019 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. The colorful American Kestrel, the smallest—and some say the fierc­est—falcon on the continent, has lost half its population in the past 50 years. A recent study suggests the bird is shrinking in body size, too, giving scientist...

10/19/2026

10/18/2026

The leaves on the lawn aren't trash. They're full of next summer.

That brown layer under the maple is the most crowded room in the yard in October, and nearly everything in it is asleep.

A luna moth is in there, cocooned inside a dead leaf, disguised as litter until spring. The woolly bear is in there too, frozen nearly solid on its own antifreeze, waiting to thaw.

Underneath them: firefly larvae hunting through the cold months. Queen bumblebees in the loose soil just below. Swallowtail pupae, beetles, spiders, a red-backed salamander in the seam between leaf and dirt.

Dozens of species can overwinter under a single tree. None of them make it in a bag at the curb.

🍂 If it has to come off the grass:

- Rake it into the beds, under the shrubs, along the fence
- Leave it whole, not shredded
- Let it sit until spring is well under way

A bare, tidy yard in October is an empty one in June.

10/18/2026

Audubon and our partners have been working towards an ambitious goal: restoring up to 80 acres of salt marsh within Long Island’s Sunken Meadow State Park. Now, a new $1.6 million grant will help move this exciting project from planning into action! 🎉

This important funding, awarded through the EPA Long Island Sound Partnership Supplemental Grant Program, will support construction costs and construction management as part of Phase 1 of the project, which is expected to begin the winter of 2027-2028.

Phase 1 will focus on elevation enhancement, which will make Sunken Meadow’s marshes more resilient against sea level rise and increased coastal flooding. These elevated areas will also provide essential nesting habitat for birds like the Saltmarsh Sparrow, whose steep decline reflects the challenges facing coastal marshes across the Northeast!

⬇️ Read more about this major milestone and what it means for one of the region's most important coastal ecosystems in the comments!

10/18/2026

10/18/2026

Fall feeder season is here, and the ten birds most likely to show up this month are nearly the same list North and South.

Six of them overlap. The other four are where the regions split.

🍁 North — Northeast and Midwest

1. Northern cardinal
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Blue jay
4. Tufted titmouse
5. White-breasted nuthatch
6. Downy woodpecker
7. Dark-eyed junco — just arriving
8. American goldfinch
9. House finch
10. Mourning dove

🌴 South — Southeast and Gulf Coast

1. Northern cardinal
2. Carolina chickadee
3. Blue jay
4. Tufted titmouse
5. Carolina wren
6. Red-bellied woodpecker
7. Chipping sparrow
8. American goldfinch
9. House finch
10. Mourning dove

Same cardinal, same jay, same titmouse — and a different chickadee, depending on which side of the line the feeder hangs. 🐦

10/18/2026

Migration Alert: Over 443 million birds are forecast to fly across the East Coast and eastern Midwest tonight. To help birds make their journey safely, turn off all off all nonessential lights from 11 PM to 6 AM to keep them from becoming disoriented. Make windows safer with bird-friendly treatments to prevent collisions. More than a billion birds die in glass collisions every year. Learn more about migration and sign-up to get alerts: https://birdcast.org/migration-tools/