New York City has begun to experiment with Dry Ice (frozen CO2) as an alternative to using rat poisons in city parks.  The technique has turned out to be very effective and as been used recently in a few parks with known Red-Tailed Hawk populations in Manhattan.

Articles about the program have appeared in the New York Daily News and on NY1.  For years there has been tension between hawk lovers and rat haters, and this solution seems to be a wonderful alternative to rodenticide use, that works for everyone.

Kudos to those who wrote letters of complaint after the death of the hawk earlier this year downtown, and many, many thanks to the Department of Health and the Parks Department for finding a safer rat control solution.

NYC hawk watchers will be looking at nests for signs of hatching over the next few weeks.  Calculating hatches can be complicated.  While egg take 28-25 days to incubate

• females may begin to sit on nests a few days before they lay their eggs
• egg are laid 36-48 hours apart and incubation may not fully begin until the last egg is laid
• an egg takes about a day to hatch as the chick pips out of the egg and feeding usually doesn’t begin right after hatching

Since we can rarely look into a nest, we’ll be looking for signs of a hatch such as a hawk slice from an eyass (pooping chick), a victory flight lap by the parents or lots of food being brought to the nest by the male and a first feeding.  It takes a few extra days from when we see a feeding until we can see fuzzy heads too.

We might see a hatch by next weekend and certainly within two weeks.  It’s a great time watch a nest and a sure sign that spring has arrived.

Cathy St. Pierre has set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money for WINORR (Wildlife In Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation), which Cathy runs along with her husband, Bobby Horvath.

WINORR has been critical to the comeback of Red-tailed Hawks in New York City.  Not only do they provide much needed rehabilitation resources, they act as consultants to the Parks Department and participate in educational programs thought the city.

It would be great if the Hawk Watching community could help Cathy quickly get to her modest goal of raising $5,000.

Click here to donate.

The Morningside Hawks blog has done a wonderful job of creating a summary of the  Manhattan Red-tailed Hawk nest sites for 2015. Robert has written a great history of each location too.  Thanks!

On February 24, NYC Audubon released Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge: Restoration Recommendations for the West Pond. These recommendations are intended to provide conservation science-based guidance in the National Park Service’s upcoming decision on the future of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy breached Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge’s West Pond, transforming this formerly freshwater habitat into a saltwater lagoon of Jamaica Bay. Over a year later, this breach has not been repaired. A very small fraction of New York City’s original freshwater habitat remains, due to overdevelopment throughout the City. As a result, the freshwater habitat of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is crucial for New York City’s birds.

Please support this proposal by signing this petition right now.

Lauren Hodapp at National Geographic sent me an interesting link about a piece they just published on their Daily News Blog, Bloody Skies: The Fight to Reduce Deadly Bird-Plane Collisions by Eric Uhifelder.  It’s a great piece that connects well with our NJ30 banded Red-tail Hawk that was in Washington Square ealier this year.

I’m glad that our beloved hawks in Washington Square Park, are leading to a more general understanding of the risks raptors face in their daily lives.  Be it secondary poisonings due to rat poisons or collision fatalities. These issues need as much publicity as possible.  Thanks for the article Nat Geo!