PART 2 of Bomber the Hummingbird, Quicksilver, Pyewacket and the Spaghetti, Plus a Saturday Miscellany Which Includes a Link to Filmmaker Adam Welz' Wild New York

We pick up today's episode of The Adventures of Bomber the Hummingbird, Quicksilver, Pyewacket, and the Spaghetti,  where we left off,  with Pye bearing down on Silver over the spaghetti  plate.

 Silver goes into aggression mode, no nose touching for him.  Eyes flashing, (His pupils go from large to small and back again repeatedly.) He stands his feathers on end while taking an aggressive posture which often is the prelude to his leaping precipitously at the object of his attentions, beak open and wings flapping.

Trust me. It's scary.

Pye must think so too because she pulls her head back.  Silver glares, legs braced.  It's a stand off over the spaghetti plate.

 Pye bends right and slowly comes around the other way toward Silver.  Silver has had enough and gives me the just- when-are-you-going-to-tell-the-CAT-to-get-off-the-table look.

Let me give you the larger view of the expression so you'll recognize it if it ever happens to you.

I don't want him leaping at me in disgust,  so I say "Pye" quietly and as she knows she isn't supposed to be on the table,  and actually cares that I disapprove, starts moving toward the edge.

Just to prove she is no pussy, Pye does a little playful feint of a scamper towards the parrot.  Not the least unnerved, both knew this wasn't the least bit serious...

Silver gets back to eating as Pyewacket heads off the table into a chair.

 Once in the chair, Pye stops short and appears to stare fixedly at "something" out of our view.  Silver considers walking over and looking over the edge but he's fallen for that one before and restrains himself, taking another bite.

Pyewacket settles down at the patio door for a session of birdwatching, Quicksilver keeps eating, and if you look carefully you'll see Bomber the Hummingbird facing out waiting for another session of Hummingbird aggression.

She rouses her feathers and gives her wings a few flicks.

 When I look again, Bomber has gone missing.  I go to the door to see if she has taken up her station in the Maple tree, and a little dry, cracked voice says, "Fresh water."

 Silver says it again in the same dried up old voice.  Where he learned to say fresh water, like some old heat crazed prospector who's gone without water for a month, in say, "Treasure of the Sierra Madres", I'll never know.

But it is hilarious.  No doubt the reason he keeps it.

Next up.... 
 

 In case you missed it in the comments section, anti-rodenticide progress watcher Sally of Kentucky sends a story of an enlightened town--

 http://elcerrito.patch.com/articles/council-endorses-anti-rodenticide-measure

 South African film maker Adam Welz did a piece for South African Television, Wild New York, about the NYC hawks and hawkwatchers.  Originally it was part of a series chronicling The Healing Power of Nature on South African television and later did well at film festivals.

When the film screened at a festival nearby, Adam and I teamed up again as part of a panel discussing pressing wildlife issues.

Director Welz has now made Wild New York available for viewing online in order, he hopes, to procure the wherewithal, as in artistic clout, name recognition, and angels in order to do his next film. Which let me add he feels very strongly should be made in order to get the word out about a tragic situation of humans vs wildlife which continues today and without any publicity to speak of.  

Adam's next film will chronicle the conflict caused by human farming infiltration into previously untrammeled wildlife territory which has caused the tragic killing of many, many lions.  

 To see Wild New York click the link below!

www.vimeo.com/adamwelz/wildnewyork


And Betty Jo McDonald invites us all to sign the petition to stop the killing of whales in the Faroe Islands

http://www.causes.com/causes/165072-stop-dolphin-and-whale-slaughtering/actions/1680442?causes_ref=email&recruiter_id=133353103&template=activity_invitation_mailer%2Factivity_invitation&utm_campaign=action_invitation_email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes

Donegal Browne

FLASH!!! Lincoln Karim's Companion on the Evening He Was Arrested Has Her Day In Court

As many of you may remember, when Lincoln Karim was arrested for the possession of Ginger Lima's remains, another longtime hawkwatcher was with him.  (We'll call her Ms. H for hawkwatcher.).  As you will also remember the charges against Mr. Karim were later dismissed by the court.  As Ms. H had  held the rat poisoned Ginger Lima momentarily on the evening in question the DEC felt she was implicated in something illegal. She was given a summons.

Today was Ms. H's day in court.  The judge after hearing that Ms. H had held Ginger Lima's body briefly on the evening in question asked, What did she do that was illegal? Did she kill the hawk?  No?  Then what?

As the DEC had no answer as to exactly what Ms. H. had done illegally, all charges against her were dismissed as well.

D.B.

A HAWK SEASON OF DESPAIR- Four Gone in a Month

 Intrepid broods eggs.  Her three eyasses that season were accidentally poisoned on the nest by being fed a poisoned rat.

 Photo Donegal Browne

2011-Young Ginger Lima, recently deceased,  tends her eyasses fathered by Pale Male- photo courtesy of palemale.com

                
From Myisha Priest,  hawk watcher,  NYU professor,  and the host of a seminar that 

celebrated the wildlife of New York City --


                                    Donna,                                    
   I just read the news of Intrepid. Heartbroken. She was singular in her ability to persevere. Though I guess they all are, which is one of the reasons we love them. Remember when her beak was broken and she made it through the winter anyway?
  What a sad hawk season. Violet, Lima, the Southside hawk and now Intrepid. Yet they say that grief is the price we pay for love...
 I send wishes for peaceful rest for those who are gone, wishes for better times for those who are here, and kind thoughts to the hawks and the tender (and bruised) hearts of those who love them.

 Myisha your note is beautiful.  Thank you.  I am afraid that my heart, among many others, has been bruised very badly this time around.

There have been times of despair before for those who love and attempt to succor New York City's urban hawks but the last year, which includes the long drawn out travail of Violet due to  human failure, has been, I think, the darkest.

Though there is no proof and may never be, as the testing of the very common Red-tail Hawk for poison is low on the list of priorities for the financially strapped New York State Wildlife Pathology budget, the known evidence points to secondary poisoning as the cause of death in this  latest wave of unblemished beautifully feathered corpses.
 Poison is also arguably a possible vector in the disappearance of Pale Male's mate of many years, Lola.

Today I am at a loss as to what more we can do soon enough to help the now living survive.  For assuredly what we have done has not been enough to save those who are gone and my feeling is that only luck has allowed those who still live to continue their lives.

Education is slow.  Poison is fast.

If mature, city-savvy hawks such as Intrepid, and before her, Builder,  Athena, Hawkeye, Ginger Lima, and Lola to name a very few, have not found any clues to warn them away from the rats that killed them, there likely aren't any clues and the death toll will only continue. 

Can we find a strategy that works with the rapidity that poison does?   

Hawkeye of Fordham, mate of Rose and the father of many, many well fledged young died of poison.  Photo Donegal Browne

Photo Donegal Browne

Athena of the Triborough Bridge nest,  a mother for many seasons, died of  rodenticide secondary poisoning leaving a clutch of eggs.  Her mate Atlas attempted to hatch the eggs on his own, but with no one to hunt for him or spell him on the nest so he could leave to hunt and eat,  the eggs were sometimes unattended.  They never hatched.

 FROM NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Yet Another Red-Tailed Hawk Found Dead

• By Noreen Malone

It hasn’t been a good late winter for New York’s red-tailed hawk population. The first big news came when the first lady of New York’s hawks — Pale Male’s latest love interest — was found dead. Shortly thereafter, the body of another unidentified red-tailed hawk was found in Central Park. There was also a young hawk found dead in the park, which was mostly ignored outside of hawk watching circles.  But now, yet another  bird, this one a Riverside Park resident, has bitten the dust, bringing the recent death toll up to four.

 READ MORE

 Intrepid, Riverside Mom hunts.  Before she died, she had outlived a mate and three eyasses who had all died of poison.                                                      Photo Donegal Browne

EDUCATE AND ORGANIZE YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS ABOUT SANITATION, RATS,  SECONDARY POISONING AND WHAT THEY CAN DO TO MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR THE RAPTORS IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS.

Thanks to Rachel Shriff for posting flyers about secondary poisoning and the dangers of second generation poisons in her Queens neighborhood.

In memory also of all the hawks unnamed, who have died of secondary poisoning and human negligence. 

Donegal Browne