City Birds, Country Birds

We spent the first week of October in New York City, catching up with an old friend facing some serious health challenges and wandering around our old stomping grounds. My husband and I spent our first year and half together exploring the city after college, him in theater and me in the visual arts. We lived in a tiny studio on West 84th Street in an artist-owned brownstone that was perfect. It was run down, a meeting place for cockroaches, and close to Riverside Park where I walked my dog several times a day. I drew and painted handmade cards that I sold from a bench in Central Park several days a week, one step away from the police who moved me along and with my dog who of course wore a bandana around her neck.

I tell this as a bit of background as our time on this visit was spent revisiting old haunts and noting all the changes. We stayed in a tiny hotel on West 71st Street that had issues with its elevator, giving us many opportunities to walk up or down 12 flights of stairs. It was close to Central Park so we took a long walk on a beautiful morning to enjoy the quiet and see what we could see.

Manhattan has definitely changed. It is richer, sleeker, less unique and interesting than it once was, but the park remains a constant. It, too, has had changes, among them many pollinator-friendly gardens and more fully accessible paths. 

The first week of October is a big week for bird migrations, and Central Park is a great spot to watch for migrating warblers and songbirds. We came upon a group of birdwatchers, their binoculars up and aimed at the treetops. They were following a small group of yellow rumped warblers through the branches, though I’m sure some of them were hoping for something a bit more exotic to show up.

In the park lake we found a number of mallards and Canada geese but also a very lovely male wood duck. There were blue jays and a flyover by a Cooper’s hawk, pigeons and house sparrows. There is a famous pair of coyotes in the park, called Romeo and Juliet, but we did not see them. We did see one of the resident red-tailed hawks and lots of bees in the gardens, which still had a good number of blooms.

A gray squirrel eyed us as we sat writing and sketching at one of our old favorite spots. I’m sure it had been fed by many visitors, but it decided quickly that we were not going to be good for a handout. There were hundreds of acorns on the ground everywhere we stepped so it wasn’t going to go hungry.

Back on the street we occasionally ran into other birds, most notably a yellow-bellied sapsucker working a tree in front of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. Unnoticed by most visitors waiting to see the “100 Years of the New Yorker” exhibit, the woodpecker went about its business in spite of all the noise from the 5th Avenue traffic.

People have adapted to town and city life over the last centuries and so have some other animals. Most of us know there are squirrels in city parks as well as rats and mice. Many cities have foxes and coyotes, and some have possums and skunks as well. Our friend lives in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn and told us about a magnificent skunk that visits their nearby park on a regular basis.

Habitat loss occurs every time a town or city expands, and of course New York City has created a habitat that is barely manageable for most humans, never mind wildlife. And yet wildlife is still there. It isn’t very diverse. The birds and animals that survive city life have to be tough and very adaptable. Their dietary needs cannot be narrow, which means many species will never thrive in a city or town environment, but others that can eat almost anything and survive noise, pollution and traffic will somehow not only survive but thrive.

Rats in particular are well known for their survival skills. I saw my first rat back in 1977 in a park. I had never seen one on the Cape though they have always been here. Pigeons, officially known as rock doves, are also ubiquitous, having adapted to nesting on windowsills, outcroppings of buildings, and other odd places. House sparrows are other hardy souls that seem to thrive in these hectic surroundings. Cockroaches and ants are common in urban surroundings, but other insects may be found as well. We saw bees, a few butterflies and beetles, and a late dragonfly. 

Migrant birds fly through our cities every year, and thousands are killed by window strikes. Several hawk species have adapted to city life as there is plenty of food between the rats and the pigeons. Peregrine falcons are among those that have taken advantage of the tall building ledges to nest on. They generally nest on rocky cliffs, but city buildings seem an acceptable alternative when push comes to shove. Life for city raptors often is short, due to the poisons they ingest daily from rodenticides.

Back home I watched the goldfinches and chickadees feed on the now exhausted sunflowers in the garden. Song sparrows were working the seeds from the tall grasses, and a gray squirrel was busy burying acorns around the yard. A mockingbird sang while a Carolina wren made a racket.

We have more diversity of plants, animals and birds on the Cape, but our continued urbanization threatens what little land we have left here.

Making room for all seems like a manageable, desirable goal. It may take extra cautions and considerations, but in the end, the diversity that defines a healthy ecosystem is attainable. We just have to expand mindfully.