A Far Coast Thank You to the Horvaths and a Hope That Violet's Suffering Will Bring Immediate Help for Other Hawks

Courtesy of The New York Times Hawk Cam
May 13, 2011- 5:15PM
Violet feeds Pip

Tonight, in my email box was a note from the Uptons of Washington State-

Thank you so much for posting news on Violet. Please pass along to the Horvaths that folks from as far as Olympia WA are watching, have been touched, give thanks and have the utmost regard for them.
Thanks,
Mark Upton

Thank you, Mark. Be assured I will let the Horvaths know. It will mean a lot to them. Though Bobby and Cathy have comforted the passing of many wild creatures over time, the passing of Violet has, without doubt, been extremely hard.

The Horvaths always put the hawk first but it appears that those who made the arguments to withdraw permission to allow them to treat Violet early-on did not think of her first. Other concerns seem to have gotten in the way. Was it politics or personal bias or red tape, fear of bad publicity, lack of judgment, too many "cooks", endless second guessing, or whatever kept help from reaching her, it took precedence before Violet.

In actuality though, whatever the arguments were, they all would have fallen away to nothing if the decision makers had simply remembered to put Violet first.

Let us hope that in the future when people with the power to decide are tempted to convince themselves that to do nothing for a hawk in need is for the best, when they do not listen to those who have the hands with long experience, the eyes that have watched for years, who give voice on the hawk's behalf for the help that is needed, that Violet's name will be as a standard, that it will recall her indomitable spirit to soar once again across the sky with a Red-tail's screaming battle cry merged with the voices of those she enlightened, with those who loved her, and help those who would be timid and tempted by other arguments, to remember how long Violet suffered, and think of that dear wild mother hawk in the heart of the city landscape who was lost, and in her memory fresh remembered, think of the urban Red-tailed Hawk currently in need... first.

Best regards,

Donegal Browne

Restless Pip? What is Violet Doing? A Scrum of House Finches Maul Their Father, and Spring's Mallards

NYU Washington Square Red-tails Hawk Cam, courtesy of
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/ask-about-pip-the-juvenile-hawk/#preview
Pip is very restless.

He can't seem to settle in.

.
Up. He appears to be trying to preen.


Stretch.

Down.

Up again. He moves to the other section of the nest. Is Violet preening him?














Up again.




Asleep.

There was a tremendous cacophony of chirping outside. I went to the glass door and a scrum of nearly fledged House Finches were mobbing their father.


That is, all but the one at the top, who had already figured out the self-feeding lesson and was quietly, from an aloof position, shelling and chewing the heart of sunflower seeds.

The rest are fixated on the male.






Dad has had enough and flies off. Resituating himself in few moments on another perch while he demonstrates sunflower seed eating technique.





After being screamed at in the face, Dad gives in and he feeds everyone, including the one who is perfectly capable of eating from the feeder himself.

Photograph by Paul R. Anderson

Photograph by Paul R. Anderson
It wouldn't be Spring without Mallard Ducklings.

Pale Male's Nest, Rats and gulp, Sanitation, Plus Pip Scuttles

Photograph courtesy of Cheryl Cavert

A Tulsa juvenile Red-tailed Hawk having successfully grabbed a rat, now must figure out how to dispatch and eat it.

A hawk this age doesn't know a poisoned rat from Shinola.

Which brings us to a question via the comments section I received from Riverside Park Hawk Watcher Melody Andres--

Interesting theory regarding the possibility of the build up of low doses of poison causing Lola to become infertile. It got me thinking. the Riverside Park single mom is looking better than ever since her mate passed away. The Eyasses born just 4 wks ago look more developed than last year's clutch at that age.

Is it possible that Mom and clan are benefiting from the rats being provided by the Parks Dept.? She is hunting but also accepts the food left for her so we know that at least part of her diet is untainted.

Certainly Riverside Mom and the eyasses are benefiting greatly from the supplemental rats. Everybody is getting all the food they need. It takes the pressure off her time and the energy that she would have to expend hunting alone for everyone. Plus as you say the supplemental rats are poison free were in good health and well fed. I don’t discount at all that most of the rats in NYC carry some poison in their bodies which is detrimental to the health and development of urban hawks.

Humans have been having an inter-species war with Brown Rats (No they didn’t come from Norway.) for centuries and as we have been attempting to exterminate them, evolutionary strategies have developed to win the war on their end.

Rats reproduce at an explosive rate. They become sexually mature at 5 weeks and can breed year round. Gestation is only 21 days and a litter can be up to 14. (And remember in just 5 weeks all of them can start reproducing themselves.)

Rats as a species become immune eventually to every poison we’ve come up with. Because of their high reproduction rate , rats with new combinations of genes are born constantly. Poison is set, many rats die, but those who didn’t die of the poison either by luck or are genetically superior and survive that poison produce young who are more likely to survive the poison as well. The rate of survival for that poison increases with each generation.

How many young do our urban Red-tail pairs produce per year? Zero to three. Because of their extremely low population in the first place at the top of the food chain and their low reproduction rate, Red-tails will never develop genetic immunity to rat poison. The rats on the other hand, eventually can eat poison bait like candy, have bodies full of it, and are not bothered in the least. All it takes is one bad rat per hawk and poof, empty territories.

Plus, and this is my “favorite” survival strategy of rats, when a large fraction of a rat community is exterminated the remaining rats increase their reproductive rate until the colony is quickly back to its previous population.

That is why poison will never ever do the job.

Yes, I said NEVER! And it is true.

The only thing that does work is to cut off the rat food supply. Rats are hierarchical. When the food supply is low , the lower classed rats die first and then on up the social ladder. If they can’t eat, they can’t reproduce.

No species becomes immune to no food.

The whole thing is a no brainer.

Sanitation, sanitation, SANITATION!

Photo courtesy of palemale.com

After sharing a pigeon for dinner, Pale Male and Ginger Lima admire their eyasses, one on each side of the nest bowl. I'm always relieved when they eat something besides rat for a meal.

Tonight Pip isn't sleeping under Violet's wing, but rather up against the front curve of the nest.

Evidently he got chilly, having no nest mates to sleep in a pile with, so he scuttled over to mom for a warm snuggle.

Donegal Browne

Pale Male of Fifth Ave., Rose and Vince at Fordham, Violet and Pip at NYU

Photo courtesy of palemale.com
Don't let that fluffy little head and those big round eyes fool you. Pale Male is surveying his kingdom and nobody with wings stands a chance if they invade his airspace.

Photo by Richard Fleisher All rights reserved
The Fordham nest of Rose, in photo, and Vince.

And update from Rich Fleisher, one of the chief watchers of the Fordham Red-tailed Hawk Nest. No white fuzzy heads yet but Rich, a seasoned hawk watcher, has reason to believe there is a hatch.

Donna, I wanted to update you on the Fordham nest. Keep in mind that what follows is speculative since the nest is on the ledge of one of the buildings and we have no view into the nest. My strong suspicion is that we have chicks (at least two possibly three). I base this conclusion from watching Rose. First, she is sitting high along the edge of the nest where a few weeks ago she was barely visible sitting much lower in the nest. Second, she can be seen clearly shredding food and lowering her head as if to feed. Given the different directions she faces is why I assume that we have multiple eyasses. I have taken recent pictures and as soon as I get a chance to process them I will send some along as well as positing on my Flickr site. I will keep you updated. If I am write we should see some signs of the eyasses sometime in the next week or so. Rich Richard Fleisher Professor

And an update on the next mystery question that is asked after feeding behavior is observed. Just how many eyasses are up there? The Fordham nest is the only nest in which we have observed a hatch of four eyasses in the city. Though the fourth eyass appeared to have died almost immediately after hatching.

This nest is also special in that it is the only nest in which fledglings regularly go back and forth from the nest, to the trees, to other buildings and then back to the nest. Sometimes several times a day. This behavior is far more similar to fledglings that come from rural nests than to the rest of the urban nests perched on buildings, where most often, once off the nest the fledglings ordinarily do not return to their hatching site as it is too difficult to get there with their rudimentary flight abilities.

More from Rich--

Donna,

Follow-up to my email of the other day updating the status of the Fordham nest. Still no little white heads but I continue to be convinced of multiple hatchings. I have gotten around to finally positing onto my flickr site photos and videos that I shot this week. In the video that has both Rose and Vince it is interesting to explicitly compare how much bigger she is. Note that in the video Rose is on the left and further back and yet strikes me as a much larger bird.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/profman_wildlife_photos/

I will keep you up-dated.
Rich

Rich,
Just looked at the videos. Very nice! I'm thinking you may well have a multiple hatch also. In 3254, is Rose mantling to shade an eyass or has she spread her wings to cool herself? Or do you know? :-) It appears to me that Vince is giving the bowl on his side of the nest, the I'm-watching-one-of-my-offspring looks. And if Rose is mantling somebody on the other side that obviously a multiple. But perhaps she's just hot. You're right. Rose is a big girl isn't she? I never noticed this disparity in size with Hawkeye. Perhaps Vince is in the tiercel mode of Pale Male, Pale Male Jr and Tristan--Small, blindingly fast, and very clever.

And on to Violet and wee Pip at the Washington Square nest located on a window ledge of the NYU Library.

Photo captures made with thanks to Livestream
Pip rustles around under Violet who very shakily attempts to go over on her side. Her damaged leg must be the one that is currently propping her up so Pip has more room to move. Then like all good Red-tailed Hawk Mom's she checks the perimeter just in case there might be a marauder out there. First she looks towards Washington square.

Then at the window. Pip wriggles some more. Violet once again shakily readjusts her body.

And as all birds do, even young ones, Pip peeks an eye open to look around before going limply back to sleep for a short amount of time before the next look.

Longtime NYC hawk blog reader and contributor Mai Stewart, has gleaned more comments from the CityRoom blog concerning Violet--

Mary

New York, NY

May 17th, 2011

5:55 pm

It sounds like the people that the DEC sent in were not anywhere near as experienced as Horvath in rehabilitating hawks. It is such a shame that NYU did not allow Horvath to capture Violet so he could remove the identification tag and put her back in the nest with her baby. I worry about what is going to happen to her.

our wildlife is precious

nyc

May 17th, 2011

3:51 pm

Violet can barely put any weight on her right/ damaged/ badly swollen foot. She clearly cannot hunt.
What's going to happen after this eyass fledges in 6 weeks or so, assuming her foot/leg have not deteriorated [further] and Violet has lived that long? What is her life going to be like, especially if she can't hunt for herself?
Once the eyass fledges, Violet will spend almost no time on the nest. How will it be possible to capture her and remove the band then, if she survives the next 6 weeks?
Shame on DEC. Violet deserves better!

Donegal Browne