Cops Rescue Coopers

A young cooper's smashed through a window in the Village. As is common, the NYPD gets onsite before anyone trained to do this but despite that, they managed to free it. Glad it all worked well. Thanks to R. DeNiro for the videos and call to Audubon Society. If a bird of prey is trapped or in trouble, always try this link to the Audubon Society for info first.

Thelonius Hawk

Winter is hawk rescue season in NYC as many of the first year birds get into trouble. Whether its starvation, parasites or secondary poisoning, hawk rehabbers are admitting about 1 hawk a day from around the 5 boros. This guy was trapped in Thelonius Monk Circle on West End and 63rd St. It has an injury to its right wing and could barely fly--possibly from chasing prey--and rat bites on its feet. The Park there is heavily infested with rats and many hawks die due to secondary poisoning--in other words injesting a poisoned rat. Rather than controlling rats by restricting their food sources or using other methods such as live traps and CO2, the City has gone all in with poison, thus condemning many birds of prey to agonizing deaths. If you see a sick or injured hawk, please contact the Audubon Society who will dispatch a wildlife rescue voluteer. The animal was brought to Animal Medical Center on 62nd and York for evaluation and will be rehabbed by WINORR. All of these organizations are non-profit so please feel free to donate to them...it will go to a great cause! Thanks to Fabian the doorman for the pix!

Dead Birds of the Met

A few weeks ago I waxed poetic about the virtues of the Bird Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unfortunately today I was reminded of the opposite side of that coin. Namely, the highly reflective windows of the Met continue to be a death sentence for the Parks birds. Here's a brief tale of why I know this and what needs to be done to remedy the issue. A few weeks ago I located a NSWO in the stand of pines at the NW corner of the Met. He was so well hidden that I didnt report it to all but the Central Park Birds Flickr gallery. When I returned to check for it today, I found this freshly decapitated field mouse. After methodically scanning each and every pine cone I could not relocate it there so I widened my search. Looking over at the corner of the Met, I got a sickening feeling. Not two feet from the highly reflective plate glass window was the still soft body of the Saw-whet Owl. In the glass I could see the outline of where it had collided. As I picked it up I noticed the eyes were still wide open and there was blood coming from around its beak. All classic collision signs. It even still seemed to be in mid-wing beat. I called Ranger Rob and turned the bird over to Ranger Eric who will then forward the bird on to the NYSDEC for further analysis. It would be great if the NYSDEC can turn the heat up on the Met to reach out to the Audubon Society and myself to do a full audit of their glass and devise a simple, low cost solution to the problem such as decals, grids or screens. There's no reason the Met cant both preserve the beauty within and outside of their walls. As a final note, there was plenty more evidence that lots of birds are hitting that window. There are a few dead birds in the grate directly underneath the window and lots of outlines of collisions on the window itself.