On Friday, 12 May, Gabriel Willow, a well known nature guide in the city, took us into the park to see birds. It started auspiciously about  6PM. with a Red-tailed Hawk circling high above Cabrini Boulevard. The usual plebians - Sparrows, Starlings and Pigeons were ubiquitous, the former however behaving more like warblers as they foraged in the treetops for more protein rich foods for their young.
Avoiding these birds however, we focused on the less common, such as the Catbird and Baltimore Orioles,  a pair of which were seen as we ambled down the boulevard. A Mockingbird was spotted on the ground, along with a Robin's nest, with the hen brooding, just over eye level stuck into a brickwall.
Overhead, and appropriately near the tall chimney at 193rd St or so - a pair of Chimney Swifts hawked for high flying insects, while two Herring Gulls, a 1st and 3rd year - also flew quite high. Briefly a Canada Goose caused us to crane our necks as it made its brief appearance. Non-stop it flew to some point south.
This May has been unseasonably cold, after a warm winter, and the migration patterns are disrupted, along with plant cycles. This of course limited our pick of birds on the tour, by this time of year migrants ought to be coming back in full force. For instance, we did not even make the usual sightings of Cardinals, though they are spotted in the area. Bluejays did appear on occasion, flitting through the branches, and an Mourning Dove flew out of the trees to pose for a good ten minutes on a ledge.
Despite the paucity of avian species, it was a good walk, with a number of tree species noted. Gabriel pointed to the scarification in the London Planes just outside the Stan Michel Garden - caused by Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers who peck the young bark to get their sugary meal from the inside.
This stretch of woods has a great variety of trees, from including hardwoods - oaks and maples were predominant, with the Norway Maple - an introduced species of little use to the birds seen often; a gigantic Chestnut Oak and of course Pin Oaks, the latter the most common oak in the US; Honey Locusts with their long, dark pods, a Bitternut Hickory, and most impressive of all, at the south end of the Stan Michel Garden, either a Dawn Redwood or a Bald Cypress, my knowledge of trees is not that complete but it can easily be narrowed down to one or the other. It towers above just about everything including the century-old London Planes.
And of course another tree worth mentioning is the Poison Ivy, actually a Sumac, which can adapt its growth habit from treelike to vinelike. It abounds in these parts so watch out! And then there are the skunks, which mostly come out at night for garbage.
So thanks to Gabriel, he did a great job, and thanks to the Fort Tryon Park Trust and Con Edison which sponsored the event.
Gabriel can be seen all around the city, he is an expert on the wildlife of the parks from the tiny and tony Bryan Park to the massive Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve and of course Central Park, in which he can claim to have seen Pale Male doing unchivalrous deeds with other birds' nestlings!

Since the early 1950s, Washington Heights and Inwood have had a good library. 4790 Broadway is the address of this local hangout for bibliophiles - and much more; this facility gives space to computer users, English classes, immigration seminars - and many children's activities. It is located around the corner from a major school. The entire upstairs is dedicated to children.

But if the developers have their way, children will be out in the street. Cold. Along with immigrants, computer users - and readers. Books and newspapers, the latter perused by a faithful crowd of locals who like to stay informed - will not be available. But that may be a part of the plan; King Charles III of England, when faced with an informed public meeting in coffee houses, levied taxes to discourage assembly. Assembly continued. Charles did not; his head rolled from the scaffold.

And heads may roll today if the madness continues. Parents are not happy with losing a safe after school haven for their offspring; immigrants are in shock; liberals and conservatives alike are looking into this rotten scam - and scam it is; the developers want to buy the building and property for $1. Which measly sum is the same as was paid for the Kingsbridge Armory, the largest building of its kind in the world, which sits on 10 acres of land near the river and major transportation.

Just who are these stingy developers? And why are they allowed to rob the children and future citizens of the realm, for the price of a cup of coffee?

The answer is the long history of corruption in the city. Remember the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park? Over 10 years of nothing doing while the city gave tens of millions of $ to 'developers'. And what did they develop? Excuses; they got good at this and fooled the public, till it  got so bad that a character as brass as Donald Trump came along and offered to do it for half a million in a matter of weeks; and love him or hate him, most I suspect the latter, he did it. It is open to this very day. The developers were thieves and nothing more. Trump was brass but honest. Call him bad, or terrible if you wish, and you strengthen the arguement; the developers and their cronies are worse than Trump!

Despite the fact that this library, at 4790 Broadway, is in one of the most liberal constituencies in the United States, there are those who would rather see Trump than see a bunch of lying, stinking low life thieves deprive their children of a place to learn.
But the lying low lives have one trick up their sleeve, as if the devil had taught them well; they are claiming that this is for affordable housing - and that the library will re-open in five years. As these promise are rarely, if ever kept, only a fool plays into this. And as for housing, there are large vacant lots - one a block or so away, that could house hundreds - in addition to the two other lots the city already owns in the district. Further, citywide there are buildings and lots that are begging to be developed.

So what makes 4790 Broadway so special? Could it be in the devil in the  details, - such as the re-zoning that will occur if this rotten deal goes through? Nothing to see here folks seems to be the attitude of the councilman and his gang of lowlifes. Yes folks, nothing to see here. Go away and take those brats away  so we can make $! And give Ydanis Rodrgiuez yet another hefty pay raise as he votes against pay raises for city servants. Nothing to see here....

There was a meeting about this on Monday, 8 May, at the school around the corner, and both sides showed up; the conservationists with facts, the agents of the developers with lies. So we will be watching this issue on this site and working to keep our children safe from nasty politicians and their developers.

Hello y'all! My name's Greg and Live in the Heights, that is, Upper Manhattan. To be technical, Inwood is the northernmost part of Manhattan Island...or to be technical again, Marble Hill is actually the northernmost part. Which sounds strange as that appears as part of the mainland, i.e., part of the Bronx, on any modern map. The 1895 construction of the Harlem Ship Canal made it a separate island; in 1914 the river around it was filled in at the northern sides joining it to the mainland. Marble Hill insists on being Manhattan. Once a Bronx politician decided he wanted it, and being a follower of Hitler, insisted it was his Sudetenland. Obviously this was before the war. Neither he, nor the German madman, ever got their way. 

But enough pedantic history and geography. Let's have fun. I am writing this to have fun, as I really like living here. Since I took Spanish in high school, this is a wonderful chance to mejorar mi espanol. I walk around and shop in bodegas and eat at Mofongo at the corner of Dyckman and Broadway.

Last week at that corner, I was out with some petitions I printed up for amnesty for aliens who are basically law abiding and working people but who need to get their papers in order, and I saw everyone looking up suddenly. It was an immigrant. This one had no papers. He was circling around for a meal, most likely a rat, which are not scarce. Or a pigeon. That I deduced when someone said "esta cazando palomas". It's after hunting pigeons, that phrase translates to. And indeed they do, walk around Fort Tryon Park and you will find pigeon carcasses frequently. Hawks, the occasional falcon, and also some owls prey upon these birds.

This hawk watching is not a rare event up here. While much is said of Pale Male in Central Park, there are actually more Red-tailed Hawks up here, and they have been here before Pale Male started squatting rent free at 74th & 5th. Lots of fun to be had here. And that's just a start. A friend of mine goes in the late afternoon to the park and lies down just to watch bats. Then there are badgers, the occasional coyote, and everybody's fav - those sleek black-and-white furry creatures that make great pets - the skunks. OK not everybody's fav houseguest, and of course they need to be taken to the vet first to get rid of that smell thing. Else you have a very bad social life. They say that tomato sauce gets rid of the smell.
So lots of wildlife to be had in the city. And views of the Hudson. And oh, not for nothing is this called the Heights, this part of the apple has the highest point in Manhattan, which is 265 ft (81m) above sea level. Located in Bennett Park, near Pinehurst Avenue and 183rd St.

But getting back to the petition I circulated - it is a simple repeat of a proven formula that did a lot of good in the 1980s, and a lot of the Hispanic community benefited from it. I'd hate to read about some grandmother deported back to a country she's not seen for years, as did happen in the UK lately, a real tragedy for a Singaporean woman who had lived legally there for decades with her husband, kids and grandkids. Of course we have to get rid of the troublemakers, and everyone is hip to that. It's one thing for a raptor to prey upon other species, since in the balance of nature this gives a quick death that is much better than an illness in the wild; but humans ought not to kill and pimp each other. In nature, hawks do not enslave each other or torture or rape each other. They are noble creatures.

And as such command our respect, especially this Red-tailed Hawk, which ranges from Canada to Latin America. It's Latin name is Buteo jamaicensis, the latter as it was first recorded in Jamaica. It is common there and into Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. 

And it is getting common here too, what with about 13 nesting sites recorded in 2016 for Manhattan. The breeding success rate is high, with 26 hatches at 12 of these sites, 24 eyasses fledging. What with the abundance of food - yes there is a free lunch - and it is always fresh, consisting of pigeons, rats, mice, squirrels and whatever else happens to catch their eye - they do well.

Up in the Heights the nests are known to be at Inwood Hill Park,  J. Hood Wright Park,  Highbridge Park-Swindler Cove, and the Fairview Avenue side of Gorman Park. 

Inwood Hill Park: Possibly the oldest in Manhattan. But for 2013, the eyrie has been in one of two trees in the ravine just south of the playing field and close to Shorrakapoch Rock. (The one year elsewhere was probably due to great horned owls breeding in the ravine at the time.) Inwood used to be the first nest to hatch every year; first egg is believed to have been laid here about March 11.

Highbridge Park-Swindler Cove: There has been an eyrie in one of the trees near the
 north end of Highbridge Park for over a decade, although not always the same tree due to  storms damaging  some of the nesting trees, but at least in the same area.  From 2013-2015 it was directly above the park path just south of the intersection of Harlem River Drive, Tenth Ave., and Dyckman St., and directly across HRD from Swindler Cove Park and PS5. 

J. Hood Wright Park: Entering its sixth season, this fire escape nest site overlooks J. Hood Wright Park on Fort Washington Ave. For safety reasons, the nest has been removed each year after
 the   fledging, but the adults keep returning. The first two years, the Wright Park hawks were late nesters. In 2014 they moved their schedule up and were one of the earliest; in 2016  the first egg had been laid by March 10.

Fort George — Fairview Ave.-Gorman Park: In 2014 and 2015, there was an eyrie on a fire escape just above Fairview Avenue and  north of Gorman Park at 190th Street;  both years three eyasses were raised here. The eyrie was removed sometime after the 2015 season, and the
hawks have not rebuilt there for 2016. However, a hawk was observed perched directly above the site in late March, so they could be breeding at a new location close by, or the hawks moved downstairs, building a new nest  two floors lower. The pair seem to be early nesters, as in 2015 they were apparently the second pair in Manhattan to have a hatch. The northwest part of the Gorman hawks' range includes Fort Tryon Park. 

Despite this smorgasboard of Red-tails living uptown, the average New Yorker thinks mostly of Pale Male in Central Park. This is due to the central location of this famous Gothamite, and the furious media interest, including journalist Marie Winn's well known book Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, and the drawings and paintings of Ken Gibson, who by the way now lives in the Heights where he is completing his own book, The Birds of Prey of the City of New York. He has some of this art up at www.lureofthefalcon.blogspot.com 

When people ask how  Pale Male got his moniker, the answer is actually a bit technical. The Red-tailed Hawk, as with most Buteos, tends to have more variation than most other species. So much so that splitters and lumpers argue over the subspecies, making war over binomials and trinomials; indeed, some subspecies Red-tails were considered separate species in the past. The wide range of B. jamaicensis, from Canada to Panama, makes for this phenomenon. Thus Pale Male has less spotting on his chest than other subspecies; a list of which is appended below. The hawks in the Heights tend to be more heavily barred and darker than the Central Park resident, but not nearly as dark as the Harlan's (B. jamaicensis harlani). 
There are at least 13 recognized subspecies of Buteo jamaicensis, which vary in range and in plumage:
  
B. j. jamaicensis, the nominate subspecies, found in Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rio holds the highest known density of Red-tailed Hawks anywhere.
  B. j. alascensis, found from southeastern coastalAlaska to the Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
  

B. j.calurus found from central Alaska, through western Canada south to Baja California. It winters from southwestern British Columbia southwest to Guatemala and northern Nicaragua.
 
B. j. costaricensis,  found from Nicaragua to Panama.
  B.j.fuertesii, found from northern Chihuahua to southern Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and
southern Louisiana.
  

B. j.  fumosus, found on Islas Marías, Mexico.

 
B. j. hadropus, found in the Mexican Highlands
   B. j. harlani, Harlan's Hawk, is markedly different fromall other Red-tails. In both color morphs, the plumage is blackish and white, lacking warm tones (save the tail). The tail may be reddish, dusky,

 whitish, or gray and can be longitudinally streaked, mottled, or barred. Shorter primaries result in wingtips that don't reach the tail in perched birds. It breeds in Alaska and northwestern Canada and winters from Nebraska and Kansas to Texas and northern Louisiana. This population may well be a separate species.
 
B. j. kemsiesi, found from Chiapas to Nicaragua.
 
B. j. kriderii is paler than other Red-tails, especially on the head; the tail may be pinkish or white. In the breeding season, it occurs from southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba,
and extreme western Ontario south to south-central Montana, Wyoming, western Nebraska, and western Minnesota. In winter, it occurs from South Dakota and southern Minnesota south to
 Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.
  

B. j. socorroensis, found on Socorro Island, Mexico.
 

B. j. solitudinus,  found in  the Bahamas and Cuba
 
B. j. umbrinus, found in peninsular Florida north to Tampa Bay and the Kissimmee Prairie.

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