here
are those who believe that the only flying creatures in the sky above
Manhattan are the CEOs who go back and forth over the Hudson River on
their corporate helicopters, unless you include the jetliners on their
final approach to LaGuardia Airport. When it comes to birds, few realize
how many other species live in the city beyond pigeons or sparrows. The
truth is, there are a lot of different kinds of birds.
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The Great
Egret: its neck is so long it wouldn't fit in the picture. |
New
York "is one of the foremost bird cities in the world,"
said E. J. McAdams, executive director of the New York City Audubon
Society. "Casually, in New York, you can see 75 to 100 species once a week," said Robert DeCandido, the president of the Linnaean Society of New York. He added, "If you work hard, every year you can see between 200 and 300 species in Central Park." The reason for this is that New York is both a nesting place and a stop in migratory routes for many species -- the metropolitan area contains a lot of different habitats. "New York is in the Atlantic flyway," DeCandido said, "so a good number of birds cannot avoid New York. It's like Grand Central Station or JFK Airport for birds." He added that avians rest here during flights that can take them as close as New Jersey and as far as the Carolina's or even South America. |
American robins, cardinals, gray catbirds and red tail hawks are some of the species that are common in New York. The New York City Audubon Society Guide to Finding Birds in the Metropolitan Area rates birds as "common" or "fairly common" throughout most of the year. That means spotting a particular species is almost as easy as seeing a yellow cab or a subway musician.
ther
species present a little more of a challenge, akin to encountering a sunglass-clad
Academy-Award-winning celebrity shopping in SoHo.
| Blue warblers, blackburnian warblers and ovenbirds are some of those rated as "uncommon." They return in the spring from locations in Central and South America, DeCandido said. |
Swans in
Central Park |
The monk parakeet -- originally from the Andes mountains in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile -- is one exotic bird regularly seen in New York. This blue-green parrot with a patch of gray that looks like a monk's hood is here by accident, birders maintain.
"They were imported for the pet trade in the 1960s," DeCandido said, "but they escaped from a container at the airport." Spotting them would be as rare as meeting an Argentinean, Bolivian or Chilean, who, as a group are 0.7 percent of the city's population.
Joseph DiCostanzo,
an ornithologist with the American Museum of Natural History, said recent
rarities in the New York sky include the broadbill sandpiper and two calliope
hummingbirds. "Normally, the hummingbirds nest in the Rockies, and
are rarely found east of the Mississippi," he said.
he
city parks that migratory birds see as rest-stops are extremely rich places
for bird-watchers. The Audubon Society guide lists 21 sites in New York
City. The Society has designated seven of them as "important bird
areas": Central Park in Manhattan; North and South Brother Islands
on the East River; Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx;
Prospect Park in Brooklyn; the Jamaica Bay complex in Queens; and the
Harbor Herons complex, which includes 10 islands in the Kills, the East
River, Jamaica Bay and Lower New York Harbor.
DeCandido
recommended Central Park for seeing warblers in spring and fall, the Jamaica
Bay Wildlife Refuge for shorebirds in August and September and Pelham
Bay Park for hawks, eagles and ospreys from late summer to November.
McAdams said
his personal choice is Marine Park in Brooklyn. "It's a great place
to see wading birds," he said, "great blue herons, grey egrets.
They are easy to see."
Another locus
for bird lovers is Prospect Park, where the first urban Audubon center
in the country was opened recently. The center holds free guided tours
every Saturday.
New York City birds do not live merely in parks, beaches or reservoirs.
A couple of red tail hawks can be seen from Central Park perching atop
a building on 5th Avenue and 74th Street. DeCandido said hawks have been
spotted on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Cornell medical building and the Riverside
Church.
Whatever people may think, the CEOs who fly daily over the Hudson River are not the only ones who can afford to live on Fifth Avenue.
WWWW WWWW
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This
brown-and-white bird -- four or five inches tall -- nests exclusively
on sea beaches, where there are plenty of insects, its favorite
meal. The nests are just camouflaged holes in the sand, located
near the shore. "People never see them and walk into them and
crush them," said Yvonne McDermott, Wildlife Coordinator for
the Urban Park Rangers. The Rangers take care of a small colony
of piping plovers in Rockaway Beach. People are not the only danger for these small shorebirds, which remain in the New York area from April through December. Their predators include gulls, crows, racoons and even stray cats, McDermott said. To protect the plovers, "we close off a section of the beach from April to August," she continued. "We are trying to set out traps for cats, and modify things like lamp posts to discourage crows and gulls from perching there." In 1996, when the Rangers started protecting the plovers, five pairs nested on the beach. In 2002, the population had grown to 14 pairs. "Last year," McDermott said, "we had a total of 63 eggs, 44 that hatched chicks, and of those, 31 left the nest." |
A master
of camouflage, the piping plover's ability to hide its nest is why
it is endangered.
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ew
York City is a wild place -- you can be trampled on when you least
expect it. That is unfortunately why the piping plover is endangered.
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