03-15-2011
A Bird Eat Bird World
I may be far from waking up to birdsong in the mountains of Vermont, but occasionally something reminds me that even New York City has a significant wildlife population. After spending ten hours a week on an underground train I sometimes forget that, despite all the concrete, steel, and taxi cabs, we share this city with a lot of, if not angry, at least hungry birds; and not all of them are pigeons.
During a recent mid-afternoon trip to the office coffee machine, I just barely caught the moment when a carnivorous bird swooped out of the sky and dropped to the roof of the building next door with a still struggling pigeon clamped in its beak. I immediately grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots of this National Geographic moment before the unlucky victim was reduced to a pile of feathers and blood-stained snow.
The only meat-eating birds in New York with whom I am on somewhat familiar terms are the Red-Tailed Hawks of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, who soar nonchalantly over our pick-up Frisbee games and Sunday barbecues. This Manhattanite bird whose attack I witnessed outside the kitchen window was a stranger to me, so I sent the photos around to various sources for identification: my boyfriend (an internet savvy sleuth), some coworkers (who helped develop the Audubon Society's Bird-safe Building Guidelines), my father (a member of Cornell University's Project Feederwatch), and Marcia Fowle (former Executive Director of the New York City Audubon and wife of FXFOWLE's Founding Principal Bruce Fowle). Most assumed the bird was the speedy Peregrine Falcon, but my dad, Marcia, and her daughter Margaret, the Fowle's "in-family ornithologist," officially identified the bird as a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
The Sharp-shinned Hawk, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "winters in a large variety of habitats, including urban and suburban areas," and is "a regular visitor to bird feeders, where it eats birds, not seed." The small hawk has a wingspan of only 17-22 inches, less than half the intimidating 52 inches of the red-tailed hawk, making this featherweight snare even more impressive.
While I probably won't witness another Sharp-shinned Hawk nature scene as dramatic as this one, who knows what other aviary activities I might see outside my office window this spring.
During a recent mid-afternoon trip to the office coffee machine, I just barely caught the moment when a carnivorous bird swooped out of the sky and dropped to the roof of the building next door with a still struggling pigeon clamped in its beak. I immediately grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots of this National Geographic moment before the unlucky victim was reduced to a pile of feathers and blood-stained snow.
The only meat-eating birds in New York with whom I am on somewhat familiar terms are the Red-Tailed Hawks of Brooklyn's Prospect Park, who soar nonchalantly over our pick-up Frisbee games and Sunday barbecues. This Manhattanite bird whose attack I witnessed outside the kitchen window was a stranger to me, so I sent the photos around to various sources for identification: my boyfriend (an internet savvy sleuth), some coworkers (who helped develop the Audubon Society's Bird-safe Building Guidelines), my father (a member of Cornell University's Project Feederwatch), and Marcia Fowle (former Executive Director of the New York City Audubon and wife of FXFOWLE's Founding Principal Bruce Fowle). Most assumed the bird was the speedy Peregrine Falcon, but my dad, Marcia, and her daughter Margaret, the Fowle's "in-family ornithologist," officially identified the bird as a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
The Sharp-shinned Hawk, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, "winters in a large variety of habitats, including urban and suburban areas," and is "a regular visitor to bird feeders, where it eats birds, not seed." The small hawk has a wingspan of only 17-22 inches, less than half the intimidating 52 inches of the red-tailed hawk, making this featherweight snare even more impressive.
While I probably won't witness another Sharp-shinned Hawk nature scene as dramatic as this one, who knows what other aviary activities I might see outside my office window this spring.