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!

Anders Peltomaa asked that I post a correction about the events surrounding the discovery of the Red Crossbills.  To quote Anders…

“Here are the 3 events as they occured:

1. Jacob had a two-three second look of large finches flying overhead early in the morning. Their calls lead him to think RECR and what he had time to see “fit the bill” for that ID. This was around 6:30-35am. I met him around 8am or so and that’s when he told me of his sighting and hearing. He had looked for the Crossbills in the Pines of by Strawberry Field, but not seen them again.

2. Jacob’s report and sighting encouraged me to start a search of conifer stands, Cypress Hill, South of Turtle Pond, Belvedere Castle, and when I stepped down to Shakespeare Garden I first heard the calls from the Crossbill flock. When I got visual contact they were in the air and flying south and disappearing out of sight across the 79-81st Street transverse. (Insert, “Darn, they are gone” which was my thought.) This was at 9:45am.

I called Jacob who had gone home after we met, because he needed to pack for his return to college. He re-posted to ebirdsnyc and I sent out a NYNYBIRD alert. After a few minutes the flock returned to Shakespeare Garden and I got my first photos to confirm the ID. Then I posted to ebirdsnyc and sent another text alert.

After this other birders started showing up, first was David Barett and Jeffrey Kimball.

3. I got an email from Andrew Farnsworth who asked to get audio recordings of the flock’s calls so that the Crossbill Type could be decided. During a couple of their flights I got two recordings and sent the best one via email to Andrew Farnsworth. Later during the day I received an email from Matthew Young (AF had forwarded him the sound file for spectrogram analysis). The Red Crossbills that visited us matched Type 3. Jacob had mentioned he thought their calls were good for Type 3, but it was the flight-call-wizards of Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Andrew Farnsworth and Matthew Young who should be credited for the Type 3 ID.  They alone made the exact ID. I gave them the sound file, but the id down to species type I would not trust my ears. When I first heard them I knew they were Crossbills, because their call is so distinct and it’s a species I got a lot of exposure to last summer in Sweden when there was a huge irruption over there.“

While I’m sorry for not crediting all the right people in my earlier postings or getting the timeline correct, my sincere thanks goes out to everyone involved.  Central Park has some of the country’s best birders who are extremely generous, both in sharing their observations and their expertise. 

There is something about studying any new bird species that just gets you to think “Wow”.  With these Crossbills it is how incredibly well specialized their bills are for extracting seeds from cones.  It was amazing to watch them.

The Gateway National Recreation Area which includes Jamaca Bay, Sandy Hook, Floyd Bennett Field are part of the National Park Service.  They contain important wetlands and grasslands habitats important to local and migrating bird species in the New York City area.

New proposals would turn the focus of these areas more towards recreation than conservation. Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn is especially under seige, with proposed expansion of recreationial facilities and a proposed gas pipeline set to disturb a critical grasslands habit.

Please visit the New York City Audubon webite for more details.  They need our community to do one or more of the following:

• Attend one of six public information sessions in August and give your feedback about what matters for wildlife in Jamaica Bay. NYC Audubon will provide free transportation and an accompanying bird walk on two of the dates. Learn more or register.

• Submit your comments online. These notes may be helpful to help you plan your comments.

• Sign NYC Audubon’s online petition to make sure the GMP prioritizes protecting and restoring wildlife habitat.

• Volunteer to help NYC Audubon collect 10,000 signatures in support of protecting Gateway's critical wildlife habitat. Please contact John Rowden at volunteer@nycaudubon.org.

After a week of sensational stories about the death of Lima, comes a refreshingly balanced article and interview about the rehabilitators, Bobby and Cathy Horvath.  Thank you, Esther Zuckerman and The Village Voice.

Happy New Year. 

Please be happy hawk watchers! 

Hawk watching is great fun but recently there has been a lot of negativity on some hawk watching blogs and chat rooms in New York City.  I usually let these things go, but these spats are distracting us from the real raptor issues in New York City — protecting nest sites, limiting rodenticide usage and supporting local rehabbers.

New York has real issues right now.  For example, in Riverside Park the local community is putting pressure on park management to greatly increase rodenticide usage in the park.  The park’s management would like to control the rodents while protecting the hawks by focusing on improving sanitation rather than putting out poisons.  However it doesn’t have funding to replace its wire trash cans throughout the park with rodent resistant models.  Believe it or not, replacing the trash cans would cost over $100,000!

Is the hawk watching community doing anything to support Riverside Park management?  A few are writing letters of support, but that’s about it.  Instead bloggers and chat room users are arguing about hawk names, tree management policies, bird banding, false I.D.s and making provocative statements.

Please don’t squabble over issues that don’t matter.  It’s more than a waste of time and energy.  It prevents us from addressing the real issues and reduces our credibility as a lobbying group.

Over the last few months these false issues have included:

• What hawk watcher should call the new female at Washington Square.  It doesn’t matter!  Wild animals don’t have names.  We’re just giving them nick names so we can talk about them.  If one person uses one name and someone else uses another, who cares?

  Better yet, why doesn’t someone take a leadership role and auction off rights to name her?  Maybe an individual or a chat room could raise some money for the trash cans in Riverside Park!

• Attacks on banding.  Bands have been placed on birds for decades, and have provided important information to scientists helping conservation efforts.  The issue with Violet’s band is still unclear.  It was an isolated issue that could easily have been a complication due to an injury rather than the placement of a band that was too small.  There is no reason to personally attack regulators of bird banding.  It just poisons any possible partnership that might be needed in the future.
• Central Park staff have been attacked for removing trees after three large storms.  Central Park has bedrock very close to ground level.  It creates situations where 100 year old trees may only have roots 8 feet deep.  This problem requires the park to remove trees which look healthy, but have become a risk to human life.
  There is no hidden agenda needing a FOIL request.  This is appropriate tree management, which at times can include removing older trees, and replanting. 
• False I.D.s.  Over the last few months, bloggers who live outside of New York City, have been looking at photographs and saying things like “Oh, that hawk in Washington Square looks like that hawk in Tompkins Square Park.”  This might increase blog traffic, but it just confuses people, and frustrates those that watch the hawks in person.

So, if you care about hawks, please keep to the real issues which primarily are protecting nest sites, limiting rodenticide usage and supporting local rehabbers!