The disapproving waterfowl of the NYBG, ever ready and willing to shame you into putting down that camera.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen

From here to Pelham Bay Park, and straight on down to Central Park, the kinship of bird watchers is peaking. April and May are something of a pilgrimage holiday for the truly dedicated ornithological set, though few in New York hoof it far from home; they set out with their binoculars, their pens, and their dog-eared notebooks, taking time off from work to travel a scant few miles to the nearest stand of trees.

These dyed-in-the-wool avian aficionados don’t come to the NYBG in spring specifically for the Red-tailed Hawks, or for the Great Horned Owls. Their prize is far smaller. And as prizes go, these birds seem more of an indulgence than the rare and elusive species recorded with fingers scribbling furiously between the lines of a “life list.” Many New York birders–seasoned or green–instead come to see the little puffs of color and song known as warblers.
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It’s a rare day when you can step out under the trees of The New York Botanical Garden without the cry of a Red-tailed Hawk ringing overhead. We usually owe the pleasant racket to Rose and Vince, along with the many hatchlings they’ve reared since setting up shop in the Bronx years ago. And Pat Gonzalez–Member and Friend of the Garden–can point out that a solid number of the hawks hunting in the skies over our 250 acres are directly related to the celebrity pair.

But Rose and Vince aren’t loyalists–while the birds may hunt at the NYBG, they tend to waffle on which site they call home. In the past, the two have occasionally settled down in the upper reaches of the Garden’s architecture. Fordham University across the way has often been called home, as well.
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Joyce H. Newman is the editor of Consumer Reports’ GreenerChoices.org, and has been a Docent with The New York Botanical Garden for the past six years.

Walking by the NYBG Library Building yesterday, we spotted a huge Red-tailed Hawk as it swooped across the trees and sailed to the top of a giant oak. During the daytime, these hawks are the top avian predators in our area and very impressive to behold (at night, the Great-horned Owls reign supreme). A group of bird watchers on the path gazed upward with large binoculars and telescopes.

Maybe this bird is a distant cousin of Pale Male, the famous Red-tailed Hawk who settled in Manhattan in the 1990s, defying hazardous urban living conditions and continuing to produce young hawks to this day. Or it could be a cousin of last year’s celebrity Red-tailed Hawk, Violet, who enchanted the residents of Washington Square Park in Manhattan before succumbing to a heart condition. Or perhaps it is one of the Garden’s own celebrity hawks, Rose and Vince, or one of their many, many offspring.
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NYBG member and resident bird photographer Laura Meyers was walking the grounds recently when she caught the hint of a welcome sight. It happened to be sitting on a sweet gum branch, munching a beakful of seeds. But as common as the Red-winged Blackbird is to most northerners, many don’t realize what the songbird signifies around this time of year.

As she sent along her photograph, Laura also shared this bit of information:

“I was happy and surprised to see a Red-winged Blackbird at The New York Botanical Garden this past Friday. Male Red-winged Blackbirds return north in the spring ahead of the females and migrate south after the females in the fall.”

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Meet Doug Tallamy, an expert on the importance of native plants in our landscape and how to care for them — Thursday, February 16, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Lisa Mattei.

Doug Tallamy knows how important a diverse native plant community is for other living creatures, especially insects. He has devoted much of his career to understanding the many ways insects interact with plants, creating essential food webs without which our ecosystems would fail.

His award-winning book and website, Bringing Nature Home, is a call to action for gardeners across the country to use native plants to sustain wildlife, promote biodiversity, and protect our ecosystems.

In his book, Tallamy recounts his own “epiphany” when his family moved to 10 acres in southeastern Pennsylvania, an area “farmed for centuries before being subdivided and sold.” He discovered that “at least 35% of the vegetation on our property consisted of aggressive plant species from other continents that were rapidly replacing what native plants we did have.” And he noticed something else: the alien plants on the property, such as the Norway maples and the mile-a-minute weeds, had “very little or no leaf damage from insects.”
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Not every New York institution knows the good fortune of having a surplus of skilled photographers. What better place to hone your picturesmith’s craft than a 250-acre utopia of nodding flowers, century-old trees, and classical architecture? I suppose it justifies the horde of zoom lenses I see on a daily basis.

This past weekend, friend of the Garden and long-time member Pat Gonzalez stopped by with her camera for another early-morning trek across the grounds. The woman must drink straight rocket fuel with her coffee to get up and in the gate before the sun even stumbles over the horizon most days. But she’s got a fantastical knack for snapping some of the most miraculous photos of our local raptors, so who’s to tell her not to?
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They’re a curious lot, these dusky squirrels, with their furry ears and black cat sensibilities. You might almost think them bad luck, though even the most superstitious among us would be hard-pressed to toss salt over our shoulders after crossing paths with this forest rodent. And I’m not even sure that’s the right protocol for countering such a thing. Still, these little shadows are worth investigating.

I noticed the black squirrels for the first time while riding shotgun in one of the Garden’s staff golf carts (though the Mosholu course is close, I imagine we only have these because management didn’t take the suggestion of supplying us with go-karts in good humor.) The fellow in the driver’s seat pointed them out as an idle fascination, then asked me if I’d ever seen such a thing. But while a funny sight, there’s initially nothing about their behavior to differentiate them from the eastern gray squirrels you find stuffing capped acorns into their cheeks or, in my case, infiltrating the attic and chewing my home’s wiring threadbare. They breed with the grays, eat the same foods, and in urban areas of the Bronx are just as prone to hassle you for snacks, having grown too accustomed to people.
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Back in February of this year, I related my tale of Rose, the red-tailed hawk who shares a nest on the nearby Fordham University campus with Vince, her mate. Since then, the hawks have extended their family. In May, four chicks (a record for this pair and likely any other Bronx hawks) came out to the world. I knew that it was only a matter of time before these youngsters would pay The New York Botanical Garden a visit. I hoped to be lucky enough to see these raptors close up, and I recently got my wish.

It was 9:40 a.m. on a chilly October morning and I had just passed the Garden’s reflecting pool. I wanted to do some shooting of the Conservatory grounds. That’s when I noticed a hawk darting overhead, landing on the lawn by the first tram stop on Garden Way.

The tram crew hadn’t noticed it at first. The hawk was looking down at something. After watching Jr. (one of this hawk’s siblings from 2010’s brood) for so many months this past winter, I already knew what was going to happen next, so I tip-toed ahead, ducking behind one of the two nearby trees and readying my camera. I set it to shoot eight images in one burst and began firing away. It was windy and the ray of sunlight shining through the trees directly onto my new friend kept changing, making getting clear shots interesting to say the least. But I got photos of the newest member of Rose’s dynasty regardless.
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Debbie Becker’s ever-popular Bird Walks return this Saturday with a hunt for those tiny gems of the garden; hummingbirds! The walks begin at 11 a.m., leaving from the Reflecting Pool in front of the Visitor Center. A limited number of binoculars are available for loan at the Visitor Center Information Booth, so if you have a pair, bring them along, and be sure to wear sturdy shoes.

The diverse habitats of the Botanical Garden offer bird-watchers a chance to see dozens of species of birds throughout the year. The Garden’s magnificent 250-acres of outdoor gardens and collections, open meadows, native forest, and waterbodies such as the Bronx River and Twin Lakes entice birds migrating through the area in spring and fall and those that stay to nest in summer or to spend the winter.

We talked to some visitors and staff about their favorite birds and why they love birding at the Garden.

Upcoming Bird Walk themes include:

- In Pursuit of Hummingbirds September 10
- Great Hawk Migration September 24
- In Search of the Great Horned Owls November 19
- Annual Bird Count December 10
- Great Backyard Bird Count February 18

Tell us (by leaving a comment): What is your favorite bird? Have you had a great birding experience at the Garden?