Sunday, December 17, 2006

Urban Nests and Nest Nooks


As we've been talking about the difficulties of finding nesting sites in urban areas, here is the second successful nest in a series of photos of NYC's Red-tailed Hawk's nests. This is the front view from 113th St. of the nest built by Tristin and Isolde at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. It's a beauty.


And along the same lines, Joyce, one of the blog's readers left a comment and question in reference to the schematic for Nest Nooks, platforms with nest bowls created to increase possible nesting options for urban hawks, at http://brownsbarn.com/pmi/nest.pdf , in the entry Give a Helping Hand to a Pair of Urban Red-tails.

Joyce wrote,

I'm having trouble understanding the drawings. In conventional engineering drawings, dashed lines represent hidden edges. They seem to be being used for something different here. I could figure out the wall attachment structure thanks to the side view, but I am baffled by the ledge attachment.
Saturday, December 16, 2006 8:43:00 PM EST

I sent the comment and question along to the designer, John Blakeman, who speedily sent in a further explanation found below.

Joyce,

If the dashed lines on the ledge drawing are confusing, disregard them altogether. They are not significant. They merely represent the obscured edges of the iron beneath or behind the views.

The only crucial dimensions are those indicated in the dimension brackets. Therefore, the ledge structure is a 20-inch diameter ring of 3/4-in rod, with an open mesh basket suspended 5-inches below the ring. Everything else about the structure can be fitted or adapted to suit. The bottom of the basket should be about 3-inches above the ledge. The legs (with the dashed lines on the two side views) are merely lengths of angle iron that hold up the ring with four legs. The dashed lines on the two 20-inch horizontal members show obscure angle-iron edge.

What's confusing is probably the inability of the 2-D drawings to show that there are four 20-inch lengths of angle iron under the nest ring. The upper pair are under the edge of the ring, toward the inside of the circle.

The second pair, in mirror-image placement, are down on the base, on the surface of the ledge. A close viewing of the side views of the ledge version will show this, with the L-shaped ends of the angle iron lengths.

And now in retrospect, I notice that I failed to show the hidden legs in the top view (where I should have had L-shaped dashed lines beneath the corners.

I hope this explains the drawings.

--John Blakeman

And another look at the Cathedral Nest, complete with both the 2006 eyasses. This view of the nest is from Morningside Drive.

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