HAWKS RETURN FOR XMAS

The terrace or window of my Manhattan apartment has a nice city view  normally but this Xmas  a hawk landed there making  2 subsequent visits since  & scaring the hell out of daily avian freeloaders who feed there.  It's fun to watch them go up like rockets when the hawk is nearby. This week a baby pigeon appeared and he so reminded me of the one with the broken foot from a couple of months ago, that I started feeding him.

BACK FROM TORTOLA!

If anyone is actually reading this blog, he will remember that I once visited New York City as a child, and a pigeon landed squarely on my head - in Times Square no less. I think it was aiming for the George M. Cohan statue when it was distracted by my big fat, ten year-old head.  Something I never mentioned before, happened on another trip to The City, as we Beaconites called it.   My parents and I were walking West on 42nd Street between 5th and 6th - not far from where I live now and across from the Library.  We found a wounded sparrow and put it through the mail slot of  the door of a store.  I know this was a ridiculous thing to do to the storeowner and/or his employees. For years I thought about them coming in on Monday morning and suffering heart failure like I almost did when the bird flew out from behind the drapes; or worse -- stepping on it in it's final throws of life!

If those incidents weren't  prescient events, I don't know what was!  Right then and there I should've realized -   I attract birds where-ever I go.  I've even given to singing "Close to You" in the second person - jokingly, of course.

I bring this up because we just spent eight glorious days on the Caribbean Island of  Tortola feeding a rooster from our hotel balcony. Not all day, of course, just most of the morning.   How he knew I was a big enough sap to feed him the organic rice cakes we brought from NY is beyond me.

HAWK(S) SIGHTING CAUSES PANIC TO BIRDS!

I don't know if it's Pale Male and Lola or their kids, but two hawks flew over my little sanctuary twice this week!  The first time they caused such a ruckus that 8 doves and 4 pigeons took off like rockets - one of them crashing into the window in an attempt to make a quick getaway!   It was cartoonish  with doves  and pigeons shooting straight up in the air.  The hawks didn't pay any attention to my little visitors as they were flying pretty high in a southeast direction but their presence sure caused a panic and I hope they return every day as the pigeons are out of control to the point of swinging on the birdfeeder I have put there for finches, and sending seeds flying to the ground so they can forage for them.  

Luiz is getting me a super soaker for Xmas but if the hawks keep flying overhead I may not have to use it as much as I though.

Merry Xmas, you beautiful hawks!

Little Dove Isn't Going to Make It

Well, horror of horrors, there is a juvenile mourning dove with canker sore disease Trichomonas gallinae on his beak and the bigger it gets, the less he can pick up his food and the more he drops his food, the more contagious he becomes since the other birds who eat it may injest the parasite he is harbouring. So it seems this time I really do have to stop feeding them - especially that poor little, sick guy.

I may just leave the feeder I have cobbled together which is my own personal shot at pigeon-proof,  finch feeding.  It consists of bird cage, bird feeder inside and 4 inches of metal siding at the bottom so pigeons can't stick their big, fat heads in. They're so tenacious!  You can shoot rubber bands at them, hit them with the hose (the water from it), squirt them with waterguns and they return within a few seconds, that is, if they leave in the first place.  The logic of flying up fifteen stories to land on our terrace for a measly couple of pieces of birdseed when all of Manhattan's leftover food is overflowing from trashbins  below, remains incomprehensible to me and I hope to get to the bottom of it soon.  I did learn that the pigeons knock-off around 5:00 o'clock (and even earlier during DST) so I figure they must be heading for all the morsels thrown away by the rush hour commuters.

Since my initial encounter with a pigeon while visiting Times Square when I was a little kid, I have hated the things.  I distinctly remember standing in front of the George M. Cohan statue when a pigeon mistakenly landed on my fat, little, poney-tailed head while my parents shrieked that they wish they had a camera.  And I am still besieged by nature in New York City!

Bird in the House - Bad.

I hate when one of these mourning doves gets into the house.

It's absolute mayhem and they can never quickly find their way out for some reason tho' I suspect they must have some sort of homing mechanism.

My first experience with a wild bird in the house was in the Clinton Administration, and after it spent the night sleeping on my chandelier, I was in love with house finches, feeding them successfully for the past ten years only to be thwarted by a terrace renovation that resulted in fewer trees which exposed my birdfeeder to the keen eye of the dreaded pigeons.

But nothing can match the serene beauty of the sleek mourning dove. They are so quiet you would never think them to be barbaric and territorial.  They are the most aggressive birds I've ever seen slapping each other with their wings as they try to monopolize the food. Isn't the dove the symbol of peace or something?  You can say a lot of things about pigeons, but they do seem to get along and eat peacefully together.

Autumn in New York

10/23/09  Starting to get cold now and more mourning doves keep showing up.  They outnumber the pigeons to such a degree that even the few dumb pigeons that are left  hardly bother anymore.

Today I witnessed a mocking bird that has gotten into the act.  He had the nerve to eat on my windowsill right where the doves usually eat. Almost at once there was an altercation with the mockingbird jumping on the doves back!  He finally left in a huff after the bigger bird flapped and slapped him a couple of times.