Farewell to the monarchs, beautiful kings and queens of the insect world.
Monarch butterfly stocks up on nectar for the long flight south.
Monarch butterflies are fluttering and feeding all over eastern Long Island right now. They’re in the garden, by the roadside, and over the fields, preparing for fall migration to Mexico.
Monarch Watch, a website devoted to monarch conservation, estimates the peak days in “monarch abundance” to be September 8-20, so we’re right on schedule.
The monarch life cycle is extraordinary, as it takes several generations to complete a year’s cycle. Every fall, eastern monarchs migrate thousands of miles to spend the winter in Mexico’s Sierra Nevada. In March or April the butterflies return to the southern United States, seeking milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. The migrant generation will die before reaching the northern states. Further colonization depends on the next generation.
After four days or so, the caterpillars hatch. They live on milkweed for about two weeks until fully grown. Then they spin a chrysalis, inside which they metamorphose from caterpillar to butterfly. They emerge after about 10 days, and continue their parents’ journey north, laying eggs as they go. The next generation of eggs will hatch in May and June, the third in July or August. These butterflies will live just two to six weeks.
But the fourth generation of monarchs, emerging in late summer or early fall, will live as long as eight or nine months. These are the migrants that complete the cycle, flying south in early fall and returning in the spring.
They must survive wind, weather, and automobile windshields. Hungry birds are less of a threat since the caterpillar’s milkweed diet makes the monarchs poisonous to most birds or, at least, bad-tasting. The biggest threats to the monarch’s existence are climate change and illegal logging in Mexico, although recent reports from the World Wildlife Fund indicate that logging within the butterfly sanctuary has ceased.
To help scientists learn more about monarchs, you can participate in a citizen science project at Monarch Watch, tracking butterfly sightings and even tagging the insects with tiny tags.
Late last Thursday, as Esau and I walked toward the ocean, we spotted a herd of nine deer.
Almost fifty years ago, my family first started coming to this house on Flying Point Road.
House with new deck and sliding doors.
The house backed onto a large potato field that stretched low towards the ocean dunes. After harvesting, we’d glean potatoes from the field, and delicious they were. Flocks of migrating Canada geese grazed and picked up insects in the fields, lured by hunters’ decoys of geese resting and eating. Eastern Long Island then was a place of open vistas. The front of the house faced little Mecox Bay, which was then sludgy and polluted from the waste of hundreds of Long Island ducklings reared at the duck farm on the other side of the bay. Long Island was famous for its Pekin ducklings until rising property values, anti-pollution regulations, and increased cost of grain shrank the industry.
Roadside architecture of the highest order: Riverhead’s Big Duck used to sell, what else, duck.
Families of pheasants came to call and foxes lived nearby in the low wild tangles of overgrown brush. Deer, though? Not so much.
Well, times have changed. Today, Long Island’s potato fields are largely gone, Mcmansions rule, and open spaces are few and far between.
A cottontail rabbit nibbles grass in a cleared space leading down to Mecox Bay.
The duck farms are also mostly gone, and the ones that remain are indoor operations now. Mecox Bay is sparklingly clean,
Mecox Bay at sunset
and is home to herons and egrets,
Snowy egrets are regulars in this spot.
terns and gulls,
Tern hovering and diving in Mecox Bay
ospreys, kingfishers, skimmers, and a changing host of waterfowl, including coots, grebes, sea ducks, Canada geese, and Mute swans.
A swan floats in Mecox Bay earlier this summer.
Wild turkeys have returned to the area, and despite the dwindling wild areas, my sister-in law recently saw a fox and her kits.
And white-tailed deer, after being driven nearly to extermination in New York State at the end of the nineteenth century, are back in force in Suffolk County, as throughout the state.
Deer formed one battalion of the Nature Army that my flower garden-loving father battled ceaselessly. (Other enemy battalions were made up of digging creatures like voles and moles as well as invasive plants, like bittersweet and phragmites.) Deer ate the tops off my father’s beloved day lilies, nibbled on his roses and helped themselves to my stepmother’s vegetable garden. My father netted his gardens for a while, before deciding to put up deer fencing around virtually the entire property – which the deer simply leapt over.
Thus began a fierce, if one-sided, game of oneupmanship. My father raised the fence. The deer crashed right through it. My father strengthened the netting. The deer again leapt over. At its highest, the fence (mostly) worked, until a notice from the town informed us fences higher than 6 feet are not permitted; the fence has been cut back down.
I have mixed feelings about the fence. I’m happy to protect the flowers from deer depredation. I’m happy that Esau can run free, safe from the road.
Esau among the flowers.
But I’m sorry that any remaining pheasant families will no longer visit us, since pheasants do their visiting on foot. Turkeys, too, like to travel on foot. In fact, a couple of summers ago, my father and I watched one walk back and forth on the far side of the fence, gazing longingly through the mesh at our bird feeders. It didn’t seem to occur to the big bird that it had wings and could fly.
As for the deer, they may be spotted nightly in one of the two open spaces that still remain between our house and the ocean.
A young grayish buck on the right with a fawn to the left.
The deer field is actually a large lot and is for sale. Some time ago a tower was built in the middle of the field to show prospective buyers what an incredible view their new house could command from its second floor.
I’m happy to report that the field has grown up around the tower, and the animals have moved in. It even seems to me that the deer are leaving our flowers alone, now that they have a beautiful yard of their own.
In mid-August, we visited a friend’s house in Sag Harbor. A lovely bronze frog held court on the deck railing.
Open and say, “Ah.”
But wait. What’s inside the frog? What the …?
Yellowjackets had colonized the interior of the frog, moving in and out of its mouth.
The poor creatures were waterlogged from recent downpours. Rather than trying to fly, they just crawled out and sat on the railing. I’m guessing they were trying to dry themselves out in the still-moist air.
The next day, the life-and-death insect drama continued.
Esau didn’t notice.
Nor did the dog of the house.
And I never did find out what happened to the yellowjackets. Life-and-death insect dramas go on all around us, all the time. This one just happened to be more picturesque than most.
It’s the day after Labor Day, and even this hot summer is drawing to a close. The air is thick and heavy today as what’s left of Hurricane Isaac passes us. And I’m thinking about summer in the city.
The way the colors are brighter than at any other time of year.
Remember when manikins (and womanikins) faced front, even in tight pants?
The way Amsterdam Avenue comes alive in the heat.
Caribbean blues on Amsterdam Avenue.
Girls in bright colors pass in front of a meat market on Amsterdam and 107th Street.
Another block, another meat market, this one on Amsterdam between 108th and 109th.
On 108th Street, a prayer meeting closes the street.
Hold hands or raise them high, bodies swaying.
Over on Broadway, too, August colors shimmer.
Famous Famiglia offers Italian ices in the summer.
On 59th Street, a plumed carriage horse was working hard, maybe too hard.
Carriage horse passes children on their way into Central Park.
Animals of all species need to slow down, cool down, and take it easy.
Dogs.
Esau rests by tiny blue flowers.
Squirrels.
Lazy Boy squirrel.
Birds.
Through gular fluttering, a form of panting, birds can cool their bodies.
Humans.
Beneath the parasol, amid an array of stuff, a person dozes.
And cats.
Why we have benches.
The cat pictured in the above photo isn’t just any tabby. It’s the (locally) famous Samad’s Gourmet cat,
Samad’s Gourmet on Broadway.
a very cool kitty, well known on the street, who is not above moonlighting in record sales.
Would you buy a used record from this cat?
But the photo just above was taken in cooler days, in the middle of winter, when a working cat doesn’t mind a little extra responsibility. Mid-summer is a whole other story.
“So chill in the heat I can barely breathe.”
But perhaps the cat comes alive on a summer night, as the Lovin’Spoonful classic has it:
Cool cat lookin’ for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city,
I realize this may surprise readers who don’t know Dallas. But during the month I recently spent there, I could almost count on seeing a heron or egret a day – and more, if I went looking for them. Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Black-crowned Night Herons, you name the wader and there’s a good chance Dallas has it. Even, to my own surprise, Wood Storks, Ibises and Roseate Spoonbills, none of which have I seen, but all of which have been beautifully photographed and documented in the Great Trinity Forest, within city limits, by DFW Urban Wildlife and Dallas Trinity Trails, two amazing websites.
Today, though, I’m talking about egrets and herons.
A lone Snowy Egret fishes here in White Rock Lake with the Dallas skyline as a backdrop.
This is where I would come to perform. Well, not right here, but inside the Bath House Cultural Center, just yards from the shore. Can you imagine a finer location to perform a play that explores urban wildlife?
Snowy egret hunkers down on a piling.
A Great Blue Heron stands on the dock with its wings spread.
Great blue heron pretends to be a cormorant.
The big bird stays in this posture, wings spread, barely moving, for at least 30 minutes. Cormorants sit with their wings spread to dry them, but I’ve never seen a heron in this position. A quick trip down Google Alley reveals that many bird species spread their wings as a way of gathering heat. Birders call it “sunning” or “sunbathing.” I find it hard – No, let me be honest. I find it, impossible to believe that any creature would need to warm itself up on a hot July afternoon in Dallas. It seems more plausible to me that it is drying its wings or even, somehow, using the posture to cool off by releasing heat. Any of my more knowledgeable birding friends care to weigh in?
Over by the spillway on the other side of the lake is another good spot for wader watching. A few Great Blue Herons fished among smaller birds.
Great Blue Heron with ducks
Great Blues are North America’s largest herons. They stand almost 4 feet tall with a wingspan of up to 6 feet. I’ve seen them in many places from Long Island to Portland, Oregon, and in habitats from freshwater rivers to salt marshes, and the sight is always thrilling.
Another Great Blue Heron.
And here is a Great Egret, another stunning creature.
Great Egret on the ledge.
Smaller and more delicate in build than a Great Blue, the Great Egret is still a big bird at over 3 feet tall with a 4-foot wingspan.
Let’s leave the spillway, shall we, and head into the park.
Step this way.
Ah, look! Something is coming in for a landing near the concrete edge of the manmade lake.
A blurry far-away photo, but it tells the story.
Oh, what is that? Some kind of heron. Way too small for a Great Blue, but not quite like any of the other herons I’ve encountered. Later, when I get home to my bird books, I’ll discover that this beauty is a Tricolored Heron, which is not very common around Dallas.
What a beauty.
Its landing zone turns out to be quite close to a Snowy Egret.
An intruder in Snowy territory
The Snowy, which had first dibs on this fishing spot, continues to hunt.
Look at that foot!
It appears willing to share its watery turf.
Sun-kissed Snowy.
But it keeps a beady eye on the whereabouts of the intruder.
If this bird had visible ears, they would be pricked.
And whenever the Tricolored Heron comes too close, the Snowy moves swiftly and aggressively toward it.
Hoofing it. As it were.
Several times, it moves directly at the Tricolored Heron.
Snowy on the move
And each time, the Tricolored seems to quickly read a warning in the Snowy’s movements, and retreats.
“Back off, buster.”
A rower glides past in one direction as a few ducks glide past in the other.
Gliding on the water.
Nearby, an enormous turtle hangs in the water like an ungainly ornament.
Largest turtle
It is easily the size of a huge platter. Not a dinner plate, a platter. Or perhaps a hubcap. Look at the circle below the water to see the edge of its shell. Turtles are common in all the streams, lakes and creeks in Dallas, but this is far and away the biggest I’ve ever seen.
Not as big as these feral hogs traipsing through the Great Trinity Forest with a flock of over 100 Wood Storks, courtesy of Dallas Trinity Trails.
Check back soon for more on the beautiful and charming Tricolored Heron, including video.
I’m home! After a wonderful month in Dallas, rehearsing and performing my play, NYC Coyote Existential (more on coyotes in Dallas in a future post), New York’s parks seem impossibly green. As I wrote in the play, the summer green of the Northeast can seem “almost hallucinogenic, layer upon layer of vertigo-inducing green, like something out of Apocalypse Now or H.P. Lovecraft, the color alive and sentient.”
Of course, everyone here in NYC is busy complaining about the heat. But hey, after a month in Dallas with one day after another of three-digit temperatures, well, I’m just not buying all the moaning. Sure it’s hot, and yes, it’s soupy. NYC heat is like going a few rounds in a clothes dryer with a wet towel. Hot. But Dallas at 108 degrees is like walking straight into a giant pizza oven.
The biggest difference is that here in NYC, we walk everywhere, to the subway, to the supermarket, to the hardware store, so we’re actually out in the heat. Pretty much wherever you need to go, you walk to get there.
In Dallas, not so much.
Dallas is a quintessential American car city, where many people walk only from air-conditioned car to air-conditioned home to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned store to … well, you get the idea. So as long as the air-conditioning is working, you can avoid the full impact of that mind-boggling heat. The animals, of course, seek natural cooling sources, which means, first and foremost, water. Here, a mixed group of waterbirds cools off and feeds at the White Rock Lake spillway in East Dallas.
I’ll write more about Dallas and its animals soon. Right now, though, I’m celebrating NYC in the dog days of August.
On Thursday evening, as we drank margaritas on the roof of our apartment building, a fat, phenomenally red moon – the Sturgeon Moon – rose in the east, and a red-tailed hawk landed atop the school next door. The hawk perched in the deepening shadows so long that I wondered if it was going to stay all night. When it finally flew off, its wide wings caught the light of the moon and lit up for a split second like the wings of a predatory angel.
No, I don’t have pictures. You’ll just have to take my word.
Down in the apartment, a tiny green inchworm – more like a quarter-inchworm, really – clung doughtily to the kitchen faucet.
Tiny worm
It reared its unimaginably small head and seemed to be trying to figure out where to go. I put it on a nearby jade plant, where it will probably either die or gobble up my only plant before transforming into a moth ready to gobble up my winter clothes. But how did it get onto the faucet in the first place?
And on Friday, six flights down and one block east, a small but mighty ant carried a huge, winged, red-headed carcass (identification, anyone?) up and down a fence railing, the iron so beautifully rusted that it resembled wood.
In Central Park, the water has turned completely green with algae, and the willows appear to be melting in the midsummer heat.
A fat freckled fish lurks near the shore.
And this morning in Riverside Park, the wall leaners and sitters are out in force.
A dryad with her cat sips a cold drink and gazes at the passing world.
After a while, the nymph hoists the gigantic cat onto her shoulder
and heads up the hillside.
I am so lucky to be back in Manhattan, where dryads carry giant cats through the streets and parks.
A dolphin was spotted on Sunday afternoon (June 17th) in the Hudson River.
Photo from DNAInfo.com (click to go to article)
Lucky people out for a Sunday stroll saw the animal heading south from Harlem to Chelsea, with sightings reported from 120th Street to 14th Street. According to DNAInfo.com, which has been a terrific source for wildlife sightings in the city, a woman reported seeing the animal (probably a bottlenose dolphin) swim in circles for about half an hour near the pier at 14th Street.
Dolphins have been seen on other occasions in both the Hudson and the East River. The lower Hudson is, after all, a saltwater estuary, a body of water where salt water and fresh waters mix daily with the tides.
Waterways of New York City by Julius Schorzman; Wikimedia Commons
In addition to the whales of New York Harbor, marine mammals that have occasionally made their way into the lower Hudson include harbor seals, gray seals, a harp seal near Haverstraw, and, I kid you not, a 1000-pound manatee.
If you are lucky enough to spot the dolphin, please call the Riverhead Foundation right away at (631) 369-9829 to report the time, location and behavior of the animal. Assuming the dolphin is still around, the marine wildlife experts of the Riverhead Foundation will try to ascertain whether it is healthy or in need of assistance. Should the animal show signs of distress, the Foundation is well equipped to care for it with the goal of releasing it back into the wild.
As always, knowledgeable wildlife experts urge people to leave the animal alone, and NOT FEED IT, advice which seems to be surprisingly difficult for our species to heed.
Oh, and once you’ve contacted the Riverside Foundation, don’t forget to contact me! I’m guessing the dolphin has returned to the harbor, since I haven’t heard of any sightings since Sunday. But I’d love to know more about the NYC dolphin – or any other interesting wildlife encounters you may have. You can always reach me by leaving a comment on Out Walking the Dog or you can email me at outwalkingthedognyc@gmail.com.
And remember: keep your eyes peeled as you walk the city. You never know what you might see out there.
6/21: Sad Update on the Hudson River Dolphin:
The dolphin was found dead this morning near Pier 59 in Chelsea.
The black bear that spent several weeks this spring wandering the forests, yards, beaches and roadways of Cape Cod has been captured. Just last weekend, plans to trap and relocate the bear had been scrapped by state wildlife officials in favor of simply monitoring the 180-pound male bear. The traps, baited with doughnuts, were taken away.
But when the bear wandered into the heart of Provincetown – he was seen at the Provincetown Monument – officials decided it was time to act to protect the safety of the bear and the Cape’s humans. According to MassWildlife and the Massachusetts Environmental Police, “people were actively seeking the animal in a narrow geographic area (severely limiting the bear’s options for movement).” While the Cape Cod bear had shown no aggression toward humans, any animal that is unable to escape imposed contact may react by attacking. (Humans, too!)
On Monday, June 11th, the bear had left Provincetown and headed back to Truro. “Sure as you were born,” said a Truro resident of an encounter with the bear, “there was the most beautiful big black bear coming up the side of the hill.” Later, the bear was seen on Gull Pond Road in Wellfleet, where members of the Large Animal Unit of the Environmental Police shot him with a tranquilizer dart and carried him off.
Tranquilized Cape Cod bear
The bear was given an ear tag for monitoring purposes, weighed and examined. Officials say he appears to be a healthy young male under two years of age. He was transported to an undisclosed location in Central Massachusetts and released in an area where he may be able to find a mate.
The bear population of Massachusetts has risen from a low of around 100 in the 1970s to around 3,000 today, and sightings are on the rise.
A handsome young male black bear has turned up in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the very tip of the Cape Cod peninsula, 30 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Uncredited photo of Cape Cod bear on WCBV website.
The bear probably swam across the Cape Cod Canal, which separates the peninsula from the mainland, in his search for a mate. Since Memorial Day, he has been spotted all over the Cape, making his way from Sandwich to Barnstable, Orleans, Wellfleet, Truro and, finally, Provincetown, the end of the road.
The bear, whose age is estimated at two or three, may be the first bear ever on Cape Cod and is certainly the first in several hundred years. He has been spotted in the National Seashore that stretches up the narrow neck of the Cape as well as trotting along by the side of Route 6.
Photo: Provincetown Police on Wicked Local Provincetown (click for article)
Authorities have been watching his progress, and trying to figure out what to do about his presence in the small, densely populated area of Provincetown. Traps were set in hopes of capturing and relocating him off-Cape in an area where he might find the love he’s looking for.
Yesterday, the Cape Cod Times reported the traps were being removed and attempts to capture the bear were being suspended. State wildlife officials, who will be monitoring the bear’s presence closely, seem to be hoping he will head back the way he came from, staying out of trouble with humans.
Oddly enough, Provincetown is accustomed to bears, but bears of a very different kind.
Gay Bear Pride.
The term “bear” is used for a member of a gay subculture that, according to the Beltway Bears, “don’t feel comfortable with the prevailing standard defining stereotypes of what a gay man should be or look like,” and instead “prefer men who act masculine, are physically affectionate (Bear hugs!) and who are low/no attitude.” Or as a colleague, a proud bear, recently put it, bears are typically “big, hairy guys who like other big, hairy guys.”
Every summer, the Provincetown Bears host Bear Week, when human bears from around the world gather to meet and celebrate. A joke running around Provincetown is that the Black bear is just a few weeks early; Bear Week doesn’t start until July 7th.
But back to wildlife. Black bears are shy and rarely aggressive toward humans. To minimize contact, humans in bear country should secure all trash in bear-proof containers and take down bird feeders. Here are guidelines from the American Bear Association in case you do encounter a bear:
Stay calm. DO NOT RUN (running may elicit a chase response by the bear)
Pick up children so they don’t run or scream.
RESTRAIN YOUR DOG.
Avoid eye contact and talk in a soothing voice.
If the bear stands up, he is NOT going to attack but is curious and wants a better sniff or view
Back away slowly. If the bear chomps their jaw, lunges or slaps the ground or brush with paw he feels threatened.
Slowly retreat from the area or make a wide detour around the bear. DO NOT block or crowd the bear’s escape route.
Please let me know if you hear more about Cape Cod’s roaming Black bear.
Liam Crivellaro, 13, of West Barnstable shot video of the black bear climbing down a tree on Memorial Day. South Coast Today (click for article)
Back in July, I came upon two young red-tailed hawks in Central Park, south of the Metropolitan Museum. The darker one was intent on eating a rodent, probably delivered by a parent, and the lighter hawk was, well, playing. For ten minutes, it jumped about, flapped its wings, and pounced at … nothing much.
Jumping
Paying Attention
Flapping
Tilting
Settling
While the lighter sibling played, the darker one focused intently on its meal.
Tugging at a sinew.
Nice pantaloons.
And what a beak.
I left the birds to their early evening activities, and headed north where I soon saw another red-tail perched atop the back of the Metropolitan Museum, undoubtedly a parent keeping a hawk eye on the kids.
The two youngsters were the children of Pale Male, the celebrated NYC red-tailed hawk, and his current mate, Lima. Hawks care for their young for months, feeding and watching over them. According to Bruce Yolton of Urban Hawks Blog, the darker fledgling left home early in September, but the lighter one – the one I saw playing – was still begging for food from its parents as late as the third week in September. Bruce reports that this late bloomer seems to have finally taken off on its own, perhaps inspired by the thousands of migrating raptors that are now making their way down the eastern flyway.
The white peacock bears an uncanny resemblance to my paternal grandmother in her later years.
In June, when a maintenance man rattled a cookie tin filled with food, the white peacock eagerly hopped a fence and positively hustled to get some chow.
Hustlin'
The peacock chowed down.
Puttin' on the feed bag
He appeared completely unfazed by a large troop of day campers traipsing noisily past.
Just another peacock sighting
and greedily gobbled his bird chow.
Staring down dinner.
Three male peacocks, gifts from the Bronx Zoo, roam all over the Cathedral grounds. The maintenance man told me that when the birds first arrived as young fellows, they would wander into the neighborhood, prompting worried phone calls from residents: “Hey, I just saw one of your peacocks over on Broadway.” Someone from the Cathedral would head over to collect the errant bird and bring it home.
As far as I know, the Cathedral birds now stay close to home. But a desire to ramble seems to regularly overtake New York City peacocks and peahens. In May 2011, a peahen bolted from the Bronx Zoo.
Peahen in Bronx Street (credit: ALDAG/AFP/Getty Images)
After several days of sightings and capture attempts, the bird was nabbed in a Bronx parking garage, and returned to the zoo. “In general,” said zoo director Jim Breheny, the zoo’s peacocks are “not inclined to leave the property, but for some reason this bird just got curious.”
A few months later in August, strollers on Fifth Avenue were startled by the sight of a peacock perched outside a fifth floor window. The bird turned out to be an escapee from the Central Park Zoo.
Peacock rests on window ledge high above Fifth Avenue. Photo: Mike Segar/Reuters.
Zoo officials maintained that the peacock was likely to return home of its own accord and, after a night of adventurous sightseeing (and some serious tweeting), the bird did just that.
The Cathedral peacocks have already molted, losing most of their gorgeous breeding plumage and, until spring, will resemble the more modestly feathered peahen.
Mostly molted peacock
Check back soon to find out what Flannery O’Connor thought of peacocks and to see more photos of the Saint John’s trio.
One evening earlier this week, Esau and I strolled over to Riverside Park. The sun was already going down, and I thought with longing of those 15 hour days of June when daylight stretches into our nights. We’re down to 13-hour days now on our annual march to the puny gray 9-hour slivers that pass for winter days. I know, I know. The end of August is a little premature for the onset of my yearly Terror of the Shrinking Days. I’ll stave it off as long as I can. There will be plenty of time for obsessing over darkness come December.
The late summer sunset over the Hudson was a subtle beauty.
And the two raccoons that live high in the great retaining wall came out to enjoy it.
For a while, their fur was lit by the sun
as was the retaining wall itself
Raccoons begin their day as the sun goes down. Evening is morning for these two, who greeted the night with a little personal grooming
followed by some rather extensive inter-personal grooming
The Washer vigorously attacked the eyes, ears and neck of the Washed
which led to squirming on the part of the Washed and grabbing on the part of the Washer.
The Washer eventually interrupted the bath to perform some pretty serious self-scratching (most wild animals and birds host mites, fleas and other itch-inducing parasites), while the Washed looked on
The noise of a boisterous softball team traipsing up the otherwise quiet path set the raccoons on alert
and when a teenager, suddenly noticing the raccoons, made half-playful aggressive moves in their direction, they ducked swiftly inside their hole.
They peeped out again as soon as the team passed. But by then, the light was fading and patient Esau still awaited his walk. We ambled on, he and I, leaving the raccoons to their mysterious night business as the dusk slowly fell around us all.
On Sunday, when the hurricane had passed, after strolling the grounds of Saint John the Divine to check on the peacocks, I continued east to Morningside Park. A downed tree completely blocked the 110th Street staircase:
The rain had been too much for it, and it had just toppled over from its roots:
The water in the little pond was as high as I’ve seen it:
A flotilla of more than 40 ducks swam about:
One or two dozed:
A few preened and nibbled at mites:
Two turtles swam near the water’s edge, looking for hand-outs, ducking under when I tried to snap a photo. Animals in the park seemed hungry after waiting out the storm. One squirrel dove straight inside a garbage can, then perched on the rim.
Robins fluttered through the trees on the hill, while sparrows foraged near the ball fields
A small flock of pigeons pecked hungrily in the grass
and one dark pigeon huddled behind a bench, clearly ill or injured.
I wondered whether I should do something to help it. I had tried once before to get help for a sick pigeon, but was shunted from one agency to another. All the while, I was standing in the rain on a street corner and worrying about being late for the theater. As far as I can tell, the city doesn’t help pigeons, because, as feral animals (once domesticated and now wild), they are considered neither pets nor wildlife and as non-natives, they are not a protected species. I abandoned the bird that day, and did the same on Sunday. But I’m not entirely comfortable with my decision, and have decided I need to formulate a personal policy, both compassionate and rational, on when, and how, to intervene with injured or ill animals.
Yesterday, I happened to pass the future home of The Wild Bird Fund.
The Wild Bird Fund is a non-profit organization that helps to save birds and wildlife in New York City.
Surprisingly, NYC is the only major city in the United States that doesn’t yet have a wildlife rehabilitation center, although it has its share of extraordinarily dedicated and skilled rehabilitators.
I crossed Columbus Avenue to Animal General Hospital, where Wild Bird Fund is currently housed, and asked the receptionist if the Fund helped pigeons.
“Of course,” she replied. “Pigeons are their star client.”
So if you find a bird in need, call Wild Bird Fund at 646-306-2862. Until their own home is ready, the rehabilitators are working out of Animal General on the west side of Columbus Avenue at 87th Street. They see wild bird cases by appointment only on Monday – Friday from 1- 3 PM. Their clients include owls, swans, kingfishers, ducks, hawks and, of course, pigeons. They welcome donations.
Please comment to share your own experiences and thoughts on when, and how, to intervene with wild (or feral) animals. And check back soon for follow-up posts on the subject.
In the early evening on Hurricane Sunday, after Irene had blown by, I headed over to Saint John the Divine to find out how Morningside Heights’s three neighborhood peacocks had weathered the storm.
Some restaurants were open, and the city was returning to life. On Amsterdam Avenue, kids hid out behind a car parked in front of the Hungarian Pastry Shop.
At Saint John’s, small branches tried to block passage through the lovely cast iron gates.
On the cathedral grounds, treetops swayed in the gusting wind.
Despite downed leaves and twigs, the Biblical garden looked as peaceful and orderly as ever.
Outside the garden, one peacock loafed about in front of the coop he shares with two other peacocks. See that elongated speck below the windows? That’s him.
Let’s take a closer look.
But wait a minute: what happened to his tail feathers?
When last seen several weeks ago, the gentleman had been standing on top of his shack, and he was stylin’.
It’s tempting to imagine that the poor guy lost his tail feathers struggling like Lear against the hurricane’s winds and rain. But in truth, we can’t blame Irene for his diminishment. It’s simply that time of year.
As summer comes to an end, peacocks shed their dazzling breeding plumage. In early spring, they’ll regrow those glorious tail feathers in preparation for the summer mating season, when they strut and shiver their spread tails to attract peahens. From April to July or August, the peacocks of Morningside Heights shake their tail feathers at every opportunity, even though they are all males and have no contact with potential mates. They don’t seem to care who, or even what, they shake their booty for. The white peacock regularly displayed his glory to an indifferent hedge.
Although I only spotted one peacock, the security guard assured me that all three had come through the storm with, er, flying colors. I walked on to Morningside Park (about which, more soon), then turned toward home.
