Huckleberry Island (or Whortleberry Island) is an island in

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

and part of

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state o ...

. It lies approximately east of Davids Island. The island consists primarily of deciduous forest with virtually no shrubs or herbaceous growth under the canopy. The rocky shoreline supports a marine rocky intertidal community comprising one of the most southerly occurrences of this community type on the North Atlantic Coastline. In the 19th century local tradition held that the island was the location of the buried treasure of Captain William Kidd, one of the best known

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

s in history.

Environmental importance

Huckleberry Island provides an undisturbed upland environment for wildlife that is rare in coastal portions of the New York City metropolitan area. The primary significance of the island is its use for

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

ing by large numbers of colonial

waterbirds A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

such as

egrets Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

and night

herons The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

.An effort to protect shoreline habitats for wildlife
Suzzanne Dechillo, ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 23, 1987 In addition to the heron and

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...

populations, Huckleberry Island has significant nesting colonies of herring gull and great black-backed gull. In 1987, an estimated 1000 nesting herring gulls and 400 nesting great black-backed gulls were observed here. The great

and snowy egrets tend to nest in the tops of densely crowned trees. Black-crowned night

appear to nest in the lower extent of the

forest canopy In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant cropping or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant crowns. In forest ecology, canopy also refers to the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns an ...

and double-crested

cormorants Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven gen ...

nest in either the upper branches of small trees along the forest edge or at the tops of the larger trees. Most of the

gulls Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari (bird), Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and Skimmer (bird), skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders ...

nested near the edge of the rocks along the island's perimeter (mostly at the north end). Other possible nesting birds include

green heron The green heron (''Butorides virescens'') is a small heron of North and Central America. ''Butorides'' is from Middle English ''butor'' "bittern" and Ancient Greek ''-oides'', "resembling", and ''virescens'' is Latin for "greenish". It was long c ...

and

little blue heron The little blue heron (''Egretta caerulea'') is a small heron of the genus '' Egretta''. It is a small, darkly colored heron with a two-toned bill. Juveniles are entirely white, bearing resemblance to the snowy egret. During the breeding season ...

. This island is listed in the

National Audubon Society The National Audubon Society (Audubon; ) is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such orga ...

''2002 Open Space Conservation Plan'' as a priority site under the project name ''Westchester Marine Corridor''. Cormorant droppings have been killing many trees at this site, making them unsuitable for nesting by herons and egrets. There is some concern that the non-native Norway maple understory may eventually replace the native hardwood trees.

References

Links

NYC Audubon Harbor Herons Project

Satellite view of Huckleberry Island
{{Coord, 40.88691, -73.75766, source:placeopedia, display=title Geography of New Rochelle, New York Long Island Sound Islands of Westchester County, New York Islands of New York (state)