Subject: NYC birds, including those lovable crows!
Date: Oct 5 07:08:55 2002
From: Devorah Bennu PhD - nyneve at u.washington.edu



hello tweets,

good morning from beautiful, sunny and warm NYC! i hope that all is well
in my fair city, seattle.

good news. after spending five days in NYC without seeing or hearing
any crows, i was greeted by a cacaphony of screeching crows this morning.
they are yelling at one of the central park red-tailed hawks who just
grabbed a pigeon and is now perched across the street from my office
window, plucking it.

hrm. the number of crows are increasing by the minute. it looks like
there are about 20 out there now. (of course, if this was seattle,
pre-west nile virus, there'd be 50 or more, but hey! this is good news
for the crow lovers in seattle who fear a complete decimation of their
glossy black companions).

and while i am on the topic of the central park red-tailed hawks ... the
other day, one (i think it was the same one) was standing atop teddy
roosevelt's head outside my window when it coughed up a pellet. i ran
outside to get the pellet (which almost splatted onto a little girl's
head who was playing below), dried it out and then opened it up. in it i
found, wrapped in grey hair, a perfect lower jaw from a vole of some sort.
i also found the upper incisors (but not the skull, unfortunately), along
with teensy perfect vertebrae, carpals and metacarpals. neat, huh?

there is a lull in the traffic right now, and i can hear the insistent
soft chips of black-throated blue warblers. i had the great good fortune
to be birding in central park a couple mornings ago when a glorious male
black-throated blue warbler flew into a bush that was about five feet
away from me. he stood on a branch at eye level for almost five minutes
(longer than i could hold my breath!), giving me long looks at his
beautiful and still-perfect breeding plumage. the thing that surprised me
most was the amazing delicate pink color of his legs and feet; i thought
they'd be grey in color.

the ruby-crowned kinglets are in plastic song right now. they practice
portions of their lovely tunes as they move energetically through the
bushes and trees, gleening and hawking insects. i also am seeing a large
number (about 20) of yellow-bellied sapsuckers, both adults and juveniles.
even though they do squabble amongst themselves, they do form loose flocks,
which appear to last at least through the non-breeding season at the very
least, and perhaps they maintain contact with their families for longer
time periods than that? i'll have to learn more about these questions from
my colleagues, i guess.

and, on a seattle-related note, i finally found a great espresso place in
manhattan. thank gawd.

regards,

Devorah A. N. Bennu, PhD
Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Ornithology
The American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at West 79th Street
New York, NY 10024-5192
212.313.7784 (office)
212.313.6962 or 212.313.7773 (lab)
email:nyneve at amnh.org or nyneve at u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/