Review: The Urban Bestiary

When wildlife lives alongside humans in urban or suburban environments, it becomes a frequent source of conflict, from groundhogs eating their way through vegetable gardens to squirrels chewing their way into houses. At the same time, it can inspire people to learn more about the natural world. The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild by Lyanda Lynn Haupt explores how humans interact with the wildlife close to home.

A bestiary is a book which combines descriptions of animals and their habits with mythology and symbolism. The animals may be real or imagined. This book avoids reporting mythology as fact, as bestiaries of the past often did, but it allows room for speculation or conjecture alongside more solid natural history.

The focus is on those animals that people are most likely to encounter in urban or suburban enviroments, particularly mammals and birds. In some cases family groups are lumped together in a single chapter, and other chapters combine species that are only distantly related but have habitats or behaviors in common. It also includes chapters on subjects that are not usually thought of as wildlife, such as chickens, humans, and trees. There are frequent sidebars with information on identifying tracks and sign or about an animal's behavior.

Haupt takes a humane view, both of urban wildlife (some of it widely disliked) and of the people that interact with these creatures. Even aspects of these creatures that cause disgust, such as the scaly tails of rats and opossums, become objects of curiosity. In explaining how an opossum uses its prehensile tail, Haupt writes:

"It's a winsome image, really: the tail coiled around a branch of leaves, and the opossum scampering (insofar as an opossum can scamper) away with her treasure, then using her icky-pointy nose to tuck the leaves into a rounded nest, either in a protected earthen corner or in a tree." (p. 101)

(The term "icky-pointy" was introduced in a quote by someone other than the author.) At the same time, she sympathizes with people who are repulsed by certain animals (like opossums) and looks for ways to coexist with the animals in our midst.

In the northeastern densely-populated megalopolis, almost all wildlife is urban wildlife to some extent. Few pockets of natural habitat have not been paved over or developed into houses or industrial parks. Even those natural patches are hemmed in on all sides and often are degraded by toxic chemicals or invasive plants and animals. The loss of habitat to development contributes to a biodiversity crisis.

As suburbia continues to expand into places that once were wild, encounters and conflict with wildlife are inevitable. And even as developed areas continue to expand, adaptable animals are also expanding their ranges, so that coyotes and white-tailed deer are a regular presence. Suburbia in particular creates habitats well-suited to certain animals. Robins now winter further north thanks to climate change and their liking for suburban habitats. Canada Geese love golf-course-like lawns and ponds of local parks and corporate developments. Gray squirrels forage at bird feeders and eat acorns on oak-lined streets (and then nest in the eaves of houses). White-tailed deer appreciate the abundant edge habitats where lawns back up against woodland buffers.

As developed areas continue to expand and wildlife finds a place in them, encounters between humans and wildlife will become more frequent. These encounters need not be negative if we learn to appreciate them and seek ways of reducing conflict. The Urban Bestiary is a good start towards such an understanding and should delight anyone interested in urban wildlife.

Birds Hitting Windows in Philadelphia

Like in other cities, buildings in Philadelphia's Center City have reflective glass surfaces that fool birds so that birds die in window strikes. Two researchers that have been studying the problem estimate that about 1,000 birds die each year in their four-block study area on Market Street. Most of the victims are migratory songbirds such as Ovenbirds and White-throated Sparrows, but they also include American Woodcocks and Wild Turkeys. Possible solutions, like elsewhere, involve shutting lights off at night during periods of heavy migration and incorporating designs that make glass surfaces more visible to songbirds:

Films applied to the glass to make it visible are one idea. At Temple University, art students held a competition to come up with attractive and effective designs. The winning version resembled sheet music with the notes shaped like birds.

Another student cut translucent film into the shape of molecules for the chemistry building's windows.

A New York company, SurfaceCare, provided a film with small, almost imperceptible, black stripes for the Bear Country exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo, which, like many other zoos, has a combination of glass enclosures and trees. The bird strikes stopped.

SurfaceCare owner Marc Sklar is looking at new technologies, including glass that has elements in the ultraviolet light spectrum, which humans can't see but birds can.

Christine Sheppard, a bird collision expert with the American Bird Conservancy, has been testing prototypes of bird-friendly glass at a bird-banding station near Pittsburgh. She said the results could be used to write guidelines for architects.

"Nobody wants to kill birds," she said. But, still, "nobody wants more rules and regulations." Her goal is to educate.

"There are lots of beautiful buildings that are very bird-friendly," she said. "You can be creative and do architecture that will win awards" and still not kill birds.

Recently, the national green building certification program - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) - began a pilot program that gives buildings points for having bird-friendly windows.

"So-called green buildings . . . are never green to me, no matter what their LEED award, if they kill birds," Muhlenberg's Klem said.

Chicago and San Francisco require that new buildings and major renovations incorporate bird-safe elements.

Minnesota requires that all state buildings turn off lights during migration. Michigan's governor issues an annual proclamation declaring migration "safe passage" dates and asking that buildings remain unlit at night.

A year ago, Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley introduced national legislation, still pending, to mandate bird-friendly construction for federal buildings.

Crows in a Tree

Before yesterday's snowstorm, a large group of crows – both American and Fish Crows, with the latter in greater numbers – were cavorting in one of the fields in Donaldson Park. Eventually they all flew up into the trees, perched there for a few minutes, and then departed.

Resident Birds

Two of the ubiquitous species in my area during the winter months (well, year-round, really) are the House Finch (above) and House Sparrow (below). Oddly, neither of these species is native to this area. The House Finch is a western species. Its eastern population grew from birds that escaped from the pet trade. The House Sparrow population grew from a series of deliberate releases in the 19th century.

Green Standards to Incorporate Bird Safety

For a long time, green building standards, as codified by the LEED program, focused on a building's energy use, often to the exclusion of other environmental considerations. One significant problem is that LEED-certified buildings often have large expanses of glass to let in light and heat and reduce energy use. Those same energy-efficient windows attract birds, which crash into the windows when they mistake reflections for trees and sky. Thanks to the work of the American Bird Conservancy and the Bird-Safe Glass Foundation, LEED certification will soon include credits for reducing bird fatalities.

To earn the credit, buildings must comply with one facade requirement, one interior light requirement and one exterior light requirement and develop a monitoring program.

The facade requirement focuses on the creation of “visual noise” to help birds distinguish inviting sky from unwelcoming wall by the making glass less reflective and more textured and/or opaque.

The lighting requirements can be met through actions as simple as turning off all the interior lights in a building at night or making sure that exterior lights are not angled up into the sky.

This looks like a step in the right direction. A green building ought to be safe for wildlife, to the extent that this is possible.

Canada Geese on Golden Water

Canada Goose flocks are starting to reach their winter numbers at my local patch. During the summer, there are usually about 50-100 geese present, as many of the geese move to other places to find breeding sites. By the beginning of autumn, the goslings have matured and the flock starts to swell with new arrivals. During the winter, about 400 geese are present on any given day.

Right now even these common geese are photogenic, at least when they pose on water that is reflecting colorful foliage.

Spread of Eurasian Collared-Doves

A couple weeks ago I saw my life Eurasian Collared-Dove in Cape May Point. As it turns out, these doves are far more common in North America than I knew, at least outside of the Northeast. Their population in Oregon has grown rapidly:

Actually, the Eurasian collared dove has been cropping up in Oregon since 1998 or '99 and, according to local Audubon Society records, it first was spotted in Corvallis in 2007. But now the bird's mid-valley numbers really seem to be taking off.

"This is something new," said David Mellinger, vice president of the Audubon Society of Corvallis. "They reached Corvallis a couple of years ago, and suddenly they're all over the place. It seems to be good habitat for them." ...

Although Eurasian collared doves feed on grains and seeds, there have been no reports of crop damage so far, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture. It's not yet clear whether the new arrivals pose any threat to native species such as mourning doves and band-tailed pigeons.

"The jury's still out on that one," said Rick Boatner, who tracks invasive species for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "But it does appear they're expanding their range in Oregon." ...

"It's kind of an interesting story," said Cornell's David Bonter, director of Project FeederWatch, which monitors bird numbers across North America....

By the early '80s, Eurasian collared doves were breeding in Florida, and they soon established themselves in the Southeast.

"Then, between 2000 and 2007, they made this remarkable expansion from Florida all the way to the Pacific Northwest. Now they're found from Florida all the way to Alaska," Bonter said....

Like a couple of earlier European invaders, the starling and the house sparrow, the Eurasian collared dove is highly adaptable and does well in urban environments, two factors that help to explain its rapid advance across the United States, Bonter added.

"They're a bird that really does well in human-modified landscapes, and we've done a good job of making the world friendly to Eurasian collared doves," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind that the Eurasian collared dove will continue to expand and will become one of the most common birds at backyard bird feeders."

In that case, we might be seeing quite a lot of these in New Jersey fairly soon.

Bird Strikes against D.C. Buildings

City Wildlife tracked the deaths of migratory birds around buildings in Washington, D.C., last year during spring and fall migration.The group collected 123 birds, 36 of which appeared at the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building near Union Station. The building proves particularly deadly to birds because it fronts an open plaza with a glass facade. When the lights are left on all night, migrating birds seeking shelter at the end of a long flight see the trees inside the atrium; instead of landing in the trees, they crash into a glass wall. In other cases, birds may simply be disoriented by the bright lights.

Here is a list of the most dangerous buildings, with the numbers of dead birds in parenthesis.

1. Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building (36) 
2. TechWorld, 800 K Street NW (21) 
3. Senate Hart Office Building (11) 
4. U.S. Court of Appeals, 430 E St. NW (10) 
5. 300 New Jersey Avenue NW (8) 
6. 1099 New York Avenue NW (7) 
7. Washington Convention Center (7) 
8. 425 I Street NW (6) 
9. 20 Massachusetts Avenue NW (3) 
10. Second and G Streets NE (3)

The organization proposes a voluntary "lights out" campaign similar to those implemented in other cities, like Toronto, Chicago, and New York City. If you want to get involved, you can more information at CityWildlife.org.

Studying Stress in House Sparrows

Researchers are Radford University are studying the effects of stress on House Sparrows.

As recently as 20 years ago, most research was limited to laboratory rats bred in captivity and monitored through extensive handling by humans.

But wild birds shaped by natural environments and observed remotely by robotic systems may provide a more nuanced picture of biological processes, Davis said.

Once Davis and his students catch some house sparrows, the birds will be transferred to a new aviary at Selu, a research and retreat center owned by Radford University.

There Davis and Selu manager Jeff Armistead have built a state-of-the art research aviary with robotic feeding and monitoring systems. It can house several hundred birds at a time, even separating them into groups so scientists can conduct different studies simultaneously.

Tiny transmitters can be injected into each bird to monitor food intake, hormone levels and other information, which can be shared online with students, faculty and other researchers.

At Selu, Davis' group will observe and analyze hormone and immunity activity in individual birds.

The study of how house sparrows deal with stress hormones may one day lead to better treatments for stress-related illnesses in humans, University of South Florida biologist Lynn "Marty" Martin said.

Martin oversees a large research laboratory devoted to the house sparrow.

Before modern civilization mitigated threats such as starvation, predator attack and exposure to extreme weather, humans evolved in environmental contexts similar to house sparrows.

To survive, humans, like the birds, developed stress response systems that helped them avoid predators (or university professors). But today, those same systems, when triggered by run-ins with a demanding boss or problems at home can, over time, make people sick.

Since House Sparrows are fairly intelligent, the research team has had some difficulty catching them. The birds seem to know to walk under the mist nets rather than fly into them.

Molting Mourning Dove

Among the common feeder birds here are Mourning Doves, which walk under the feeder and pick things off the ground. I am not entirely sure what they are finding, whether they are picking up bits of seed that were sloppily dropped by other birds at the feeder or catching invertebrates. It might be a bit of both. While their plumage is understated, their shape and gait makes them appear more elegant than some other feeder visitors.

As I was examining my photographs, I realized that this dove has two ages of feathers – in other words, the bird is molting. It is most obvious in the wing coverts: some feathers are grayish and others are brown. Which ones are newer is not as clear, but it seems that the darker ones have crisper edges while the lighter ones look frayed, so the dark ones are probably fresh.

Being Heard in a Noisy Place

Song Sparrow / USFWS Photo

When I hear urban Song Sparrows singing, I often feel that their songs are missing something. It turns out that there is a very good reason for that. The lower pitches in their songs may be drowned out by ambient noise. In fact, some urban birds have mostly abandoned the lower pitches to expend more effort on the higher ones.

While at Reed College in Oregon, Yezerinac and student William E. Wood examined the effects of urban noise on the song sparrow songs of Portland. They recorded 28 birds in areas with various levels of background noise, carefully measuring frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume; the amount of energy invested in making a sound).

Birds in the noisiest spots were more likely to cede some of their lower frequencies to background noise, while their songs' higher-frequency notes remained constant.

The link has an audio sample and spectrographs that illustrate the Song Sparrows' challenge quite well.

Group Building Nest Boxes Around Gowanus

A group of young architects has been installing yellow nest boxes for birds around the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.

With growth has come sophistication. At first their boxes were built with the rough idea of attracting a common songbird, the Eastern Bluebird, but since working with John Rowden, this changed. Rowden, an ornithologist with the New York City chapter of the National Audubon Society, suggested a more targeted approach.

“Most of my work is in areas a bit more natural than Gowanus,” Rowden joked. He advised the team against attracting bluebirds, which are not typically found so close to water, and to focus instead on birds such as chimney swifts, known for their insect-eating abilities, and on a small falcon called the kestrel.

A dramatically patterned bird with contrasting gray wings and a copper-colored back, the kestrel doesn’t build its own nest, but instead uses natural crevices or manmade boxes it finds. It’s a predator that hunts rats, patrolling its domain by hovering in place on outstretched wings.

“If people know wildlife is in the area, they’d appreciate it more,” Rowden said. “If people see wildlife, they’d know industrial areas are not as dead as everyone thinks.”

Since the spring of 2009, the Nest Colony group joined the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and their members started participating in the Conservancy’s monthly volunteer cleanup events on the canal. There, they demonstrate their birdhouse-building techniques while encouraging the public to think of other ways to benefit the canal. Also, with the Conservancy’s support, they were able to secure grants that allowed them to build more birdhouses over the course of last summer.

So far the group has installed 21 nest boxes; their next goal is to build five 12-foot nesting chimneys for Chimney Swifts. They also hope that Tree Swallows will use some of the smaller boxes.

I am glad to see that the group is taking advice from some ornithologists, as that should make it more likely that their efforts will be useful to birds. The target species seem appropriate for an urban setting. The American Kestrel is declining in much of the northeastern U.S. and might benefit from some assistance. Likewise, Chimney Swifts have been in decline because changes in chimney design have reduced nesting sites.

The choice of color for the nest boxes seems a bit odd. While bright yellow does look cheerful against the decaying industrial buildings, most advice I have read suggests using plain, untreated wood for nest box construction. I am not sure if painting the boxes will discourage birds from using them or increase nest predation in an unnatural setting like the Gowanus Canal. It still seems inadvisable.

The article mentions that American Kestrels will eat rats. Perhaps some New York City kestrels have been observed eating rats, but I would expect kestrels to pursue smaller prey. According to Birds of North America, an average kestrel's diet is composed of 74% invertebrates, 16% mammals, 9% birds, and 1% reptiles and amphibians. Major prey animals include grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, dragonflies, spiders, butterflies, moths, voles, mice, shrews, bats, and small songbirds. I did not see any mention of rats, either in Birds of North America or in my raptor books.

Photographs of Ring-billed Gulls in DC

As I mentioned in yesterday morning's post, I am in Massachusetts this weekend for the Superbowl of Birding, so blogging will be light. (If you want to know how things are going, check my Twitter account.) This morning I am going to try putting the "DC" back into "A DC Birding Blog" by posting a few birds I saw in the District last weekend. The day after the C&O Canal Count, I wandered around some neighborhoods I liked when I lived there, particularly Dupont Circle and the Capitol grounds. I was not specifically birding, but I did see a few species. Most were common urban birds; my best sighting was a Merlin that zipped past me near the Capitol.

While living in the city, I gained an appreciation for some very common birds. House Sparrows, for example, were one of the few species that deigned to visit the windowsill of my apartment. One that I really liked to watch is the Ring-billed Gull. These gulls are more dainty than the Herring Gulls and Great Black-backed Gulls, and the ones in cities are often quite approachable. So last Sunday, when I visited the reflecting pool on the west side of the Capitol, I took advantage of the occasion to photograph a few gulls.

First, here is an adult Ring-billed Gull in a hurry.

Second, here are two immature Ring-billed Gulls loafing on the edge of the pool.

Those were part of a much larger group lined up along the wall. As you can see from the whitewash on the wall, this is a very popular gull location.

Eventually they all took off, so I continued around the pool.

More on the St. Elizabeth's Bald Eagle Nest

Regular readers may remember a story I linked a few weeks back about DC's only Bald Eagle nest, which is located on a property slated to become the new DHS headquarters. That story, reported in the LA Times, discussed concerns that one element of the project – a new entrance road – may cause the eagles to abandon the site. At the time I wondered, and one commenter asked, why the story did not seem to get coverage in the DC press. The Post has now covered the story with some more information on the site (including a map) and decision process.

Officials from the National Park Service and DC Fisheries and Wildlife seem the most concerned about possible harm from the road construction project. Eagles that would choose to settle in such an urban location obviously have some tolerance for disturbance. The question is how much is too much.

"The assumption is that there's already so much going on that a little more won't hurt. And I don't think that we can make that assumption," said Bryan King, head of fisheries and wildlife for the D.C. Department of the Environment. "It's a definite possibility" that the eagles will abandon the nest, King said.

And:

"You get the sense, yeah, these guys know what they're doing," said Stephen Syphax, chief of the resource management division at National Capital Parks East, a group of parks on the city's east side. On one recent morning, he was in a muggy, overgrown ravine, peering with binoculars through the tree canopy, looking for the nest. Finally, Syphax gave up: it was too well hidden to be seen from the ground. "I've lost this guy. But good for the eagles."

Syphax said the planned road would not require removal of the tree with the nest. But, he said, it could take away other trees that the birds use when they are eating, looking for food or loafing. That could drive them out, he said.

According to the DHS, an environmental impact statement was completed before the project was approved.

A DHS spokesman said the road was purposefully laid out a few hundred yards from the birds' nest. The plan for the road was approved this year, after an environmental impact statement determined that there would be a "negligible increase in noise" around the nest.

Craig Koppie, a Fish and Wildlife scientist who is a preeminent authority on Washington area eagles, said he agreed. Eagles might roam widely from their nests, but they return each December to begin the breeding season. They normally use the same nest for seven or eight years before building another nearby.

"I actually don't see [the road] as being a problem," Koppie said. "Clearly, the birds have seen the human infrastructure that's in place," he said, and they don't mind it enough to leave.

The fact that an EIS has been completed is somewhat reassuring. Eagles near the Wilson Bridge remained at that site through years of construction activity as a new bridge was built, so it may well be possible for the eagles at the St. Elizabeth's site to remain there as well. Still, building a road so close to a nest site is a definite risk, one that I hope will not end badly. One question that I did not see addressed in the article was why the DHS could not renovate an existing entrance to meet their needs instead of building a new one. I think that ought to be the preferred alternative in a case such as this.

Note: The image at the top is a photo I took on 2/10/06 of a pair of Bald Eagles at Hains Point in DC. I do not whether it is the same pair that nests at St. Elizabeth's, but it may be since eagles can cover large territories and the nesting season was just beginning.

DC Bald Eagle Nest Threatened by DHS Project

For a long time, I knew or suspected that there was a pair of Bald Eagles nesting within the District of Columbia, but I did not know the location. Well, I finally learned where it is, but for unhappy reasons. The nest is located on the grounds of the former site of St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a 19th-century psychiatric hospital located in southeast Washington. In the winter of 2001, a pair of bald eagles built a nest at the site and have nested each year since then. This pair was the first to nest in DC since 1946. I think it likely that these are the adult eagles that I often saw perched or flying along the Anacostia River, at places like Haines Point and the National Arboretum.

Now that nest may be at risk. A few years ago, the federal government decided to reuse the abandoned federal facilities as a new national headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security. That, by itself, makes some sense. Abandoned historic buildings are more likely to be maintained if they are being used actively rather than sitting empty, and a new federal building could potentially bring jobs to the surrounded neighborhoods, which are among the poorest in DC. The problem is not so much the headquarters as the access road.

The government says a centralized control center would streamline its response to a national emergency by bringing thousands of federal workers under one roof, with a new access road to handle most of the traffic.

But the road would run through 200 acres of protected wildlife habitat, wiping out a dozen acres of trees. That, some fear, could drive off the only pair of eagles intrepid enough to call Washington home. "They used to be here, they weren't here for many years and now they're back. It makes me feel better knowing something is coming back," Stephen Syphax, a National Park Service ranger, said one morning as he walked through the woods near the eagles' nest....

The two are what scientists call "urban eagles," displaying an unusual willingness to tolerate levels of human activity they avoided for decades -- understandably, considering the threat man posed.

The question of just how much more noise and habitat destruction the eagles will withstand has been simmering for months, putting the emblem of America's strength at the center of a post-Sept. 11 dilemma: balancing natural resources and national security.

That indeed is the question: how much disturbance these urban eagles are willing to tolerate before abandoning the nest. Since this pair has stayed at the site for eight years, they are clearly tolerant of human activity and have the skills to survive and breed in a dense urban atmosphere. However, given that the hospital grounds have seen very little activity for most of that time, it is difficult to predict how the eagles might react to sudden changes to the landscape, especially a change as drastic as the construction of a long access road. I would prefer not to see this question put to the test, especially when there are viable alternatives. The department ought first to try refitting one or more of the hospital's existing entrances to meet current standards. This would provide them with the security they need and avoid harming our national symbol in the process.

Even if you do not click through to read the article, make sure to take a look through the accompanying photo gallery.

Bird-friendly Architecture?

One of the problems with "green" architecture, as it is currently construed, is that it favors using a lot of glass. Now, glass has its advantages, as natural lighting is wonderful, and letting more sunlight inside can help a room feel warmer in the winter. Some glass buildings are indeed attractive. The trouble is that birds cannot perceive glass, so that a glass wall will either seem clear or will reflect back the building's surroundings. Thus walls constructed out of glass can become death traps for birds, especially during migration when many birds are tired and disoriented anyway.

Via bootstrap analysis, I learned that there is talk now of encouraging bird friendly certification to work alongside the current LEED standard.

Bird-Certified Architecture
LEED, a popular green building standard, awards only one point for bird-safe design, but it’s not a requirement. Other industries have already gone to the birds, for example, you can easily find bird-friendly coffee. In 2007, the New York City Audubon Society published guidelines to bird-safe buildings, but the techniques are still often absent from most green projects. Places such as Chicago and Toronto have bird-safe guidelines, yet there’s not a nationally recognized certification for ornithological design-excellence. If Ruiz-Gutierrez has her way, that’ll all change.

Ruiz-Gutierrez is bird crazy. She’s spent her share of time in the field researching and monitoring birds. Her research focuses on the effects of agricultural land uses on forest bird populations, as well as testing monitoring techniques to determine how land use patterns around protected areas influences their capability to maintain current levels of biodiversity. Her research has shown her that with less natural areas, birds are spending their time in urban environments. Impact of urbanization on bird populations is evident from mortalities in cities. At least 100,000,000 birds are killed every year across North America by collisions with buildings. Even more are injured.

An enforceable and evidence-based bird-friendly standard could be a major benefit to birds. As things stand now, the current LEED standards are inadequate for addressing a building's environmental impact. One of the many problems is the lack of bird-safe design. Creating a bird-friendly standard might be a step towards making "green" buildings more green.

Red-tails Nesting on Capitol Hill

In the midst of a bird breeding season several years ago, I noted a disparity between the New York and Washington birding scenes. New York has multiple pairs of Red-tailed Hawks nesting in prominent locations – most notably Pale Male and Lola on Fifth Avenue. Their nests are ably monitored by local blogs such as City Birder, Urban Hawks, Pale Male Irregulars, and Origin of Species. At the time I knew of no red-tail nests in DC and no blogs devoted to following the nests of red-tails (or other urban raptors, for that matter). Whether that was due to a lack of such nests or cultural differences between birders in the two cities was unclear to me. Now at least one part of that needs to be revised.

A pair of Red-tailed Hawks has taken up residence at the House Rayburn Office Building and built a nest on one of its ledges. My friend Peter Vankevich heard about and photographed the hawks at their nest site in April. This morning the Washington Post featured an interview with Peter at the nest site.

Peter Vankevich heard about the birds a few weeks ago, a pair of red-tailed hawks that had made their nest in the pediment above the entrance to the Rayburn House Office Building, right under the watchful eye of a carved stone eagle. As the author of a monthly bird-watching column in the Hill Rag, he hustled over to see them.

On this particular weekday morning, Peter has his bazooka-like camera lens trained on the nest, only the edge of which is visible from Independence Avenue. He's not sure we'll see the hawks today.

"It's a bit like fishing," he says of birding. The fish aren't biting.

Peter also wrote about the hawk nest in the June 2009 edition of the Hill Rag. This appears to be a late breeding attempt since the hawks were observed carrying sticks to the nest in May; most red-tails commence breeding in March or early April. No chicks or eggs are visible from street level, so it is difficult to tell the status of the nest. Red-tails usually incubate their eggs for 30-35 days, and chicks remain in the nest for about 45 days before fledging.

As far as I know, this is the first time Red-tailed Hawks have attempted nesting near the Capitol. I hope that the nest is successful and that the pair returns for future nesting seasons.

I have included a few of Peter's photographs of the hawks in this post. Click through to see larger versions.

Local Parrots

As mentioned in a previous post here, Monk Parakeets recently became a recognized species in New Jersey. While the state's best-known colony is in Edgewater, there is also one in Carteret, here in Middlesex County. David Wheeler at WildNewJersey.tv has some photographs of Carteret's Monk Parakeet colony.

Worst Three Buildings in New York for Bird Strikes

The New York City Audubon Society named the worst three buildings in New York City for bird collisions:

• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
• Bellevue Hospital Center

The Met's presence on that list is somewhat surprising since it is not one of the ultra-modern all-glass buildings. My guess is that the Egyptian wing, which has a glass wall jutting into Central Park, is the main source of collisions. I am not as familiar with the other two sites.

Until 2007, the most lethal building by far used to be the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, a United States Postal Service site that spans from West 28th to West 30th Street between Ninth and 10th Avenues. The building’s 440 decorative reflective panels on the south side mirrored the trees in Chelsea Park, fooling the birds into believing it was a welcoming hospitable habitat....

An architect recommended that black vinyl be placed over each of the panels at the center, and now things are immeasurably improved.

It has not been as easy a problem to remedy with the Met, the Javits Center and Bellevue, because of a combination of aesthetics and technology. Mr. Phillips said they are in discussions with the buildings to reduce bird collision mortality.

But arguably, bird glass hazards in New York City are getting worse, not better. Glass is “in” because it is a common feature of green architecture, which means that more avian-unfriendly structures are popping up. They are particularly a hazard when they are near parks or other areas with foliage....

For example, the new diaphanous glass condominium building designed by Richard Meier in Brookyn’s Grand Army Plaza has raised the concern of the Audubon Society, as The New York Post noted this week.

“We’ve been planning on monitoring that building starting in the spring,” Mr. Phillips said.

Estimates for overall bird mortality from collisions with buildings range from 100 million to 1 billions per year.

On Birds and Airplanes

In the wake of the forced landing US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River, there has been much speculation over how to reduce bird strikes. Now, first off, we do not know for certain that birds caused the engine failure, and we will not know until the engines are found and examined. It does seem likely that a bird collision was involved, however, since the pilots reported a strike and local radar picked up something interesting:

At about the time of the crash, a government weather radar in Upton, on Long Island, registered something in the path of Flight 1549 that a government scientist, Steve Ansari of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said was consistent with a big flock of birds. Mr. Ansari said it might also have been precipitation.

But a specialist in the use of radar to study birds, Jeffrey J. Buler of the University of Delaware, said that the image was more likely “biological than meteorological,” because the amount of radar energy reflected back to the station was smaller than what rain or snow would produce. The radar indicated that the objects were moving toward Upton at about 20 knots, a speed consistent with geese, he said. He also noted that at this time of year, large flocks move between feeding grounds and roosting areas.

Assuming that a bird strike caused the crash, what could be done to reduce such collisions in the future? Apparently there has been some angry ranting about killing birds to reduce strikes, as discussed in a thread over at 10,000 Birds. In a human-bird conflict of this type, killing birds is the solution I would hope an airport would turn to last, after trying other solutions. Even if killing birds could be justified, it would be difficult to kill enough – and in the right places – to prevent further strikes. Especially in winter, New York City hosts huge flocks of birds. Each of the local Christmas Bird Counts in the La Guardia area recorded several thousand Canada Geese. Plus there are thousands more gulls, starlings, and other possible culprits.

So what could be done instead? Sea-Tac airport in Washington state has managed to avoid fatal collisions with a multi-pronged management program.

The 113 acres of wetlands near the airport are heavily forested with trees such as cedars and cottonwoods to keep large flocks of birds from feeding and nesting there, and the port sowed 158,000 native plants known to be unattractive to birds, eschewing all varieties that produce fruits, nuts and berries.

The port also developed a grass seed mix containing a fungus that makes it less appetizing to some birds and insects.

Port biologist Steve Osmek scares away ducks, and some adult hawks that have already formed their territory at the airport from departing and landing planes with a small pistol that makes a loud noise like fireworks.

Since June 2001, nearly 100 raptors have been trapped alive near Sea-Tac and relocated to safer habitats in northern Washington.

From September 2007 through August 2008, the FAA recorded that planes struck Canada geese, double-breasted cormorants [sic], house sparrows, rock pigeons and tree sparrows the most -- two strikes per species.

Not all of those tactics would work at La Guardia; the area around it is heavily urbanized, so the vegetative changes would probably be irrelevant to the situation. However, Sea-Tac's example does show that airports can reduce bird strikes – and thus reduce dangers for both birds and humans – without resorting to lethal methods.