THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE TIERCEL IS MISSING!!! Do Pale Male and Zena Have a Hatch?

                                       Photo courtesy of    http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

The Franklin Institute tiercel was last seen on Friday.  He has gone missing leaving his formel with three very young eyasses on the nest.


The formel left the nest today to hunt.  She was gone two hours but did return with a large rat. Unfortunately it will be very difficult if not impossible for her to feed and care for three eyasses on her own.  

I have suggested that the local Hawkwatchers institute a supplemental food program similar to the one rehabber Bobby Horvath and the Riverside Park Hawkwatchers used when Riverside Dad was poisoned leaving Intrepid, the Riverside Mom with eyasses on the nest. Previously frozen rats and Quail were left where she could see them.  She took to the program without missing a beat. It worked very well and no eyass starved on the nest.


If memory serves, The Franklin Institute Nest overlooks a highway which will possibly make leaving visible and easily obtainable food for the formel to take to the nest somewhat more difficult.  Perhaps there is an adjacent window ledge where food could be left discretely for her to find.  This would also keep her closer to the eyasses in case they needed to be protected from predators.

The Franklin Hawk Cam was turned off for a short while after the tiercel went missing but then began broadcasting again.  It is currently off again. ???  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-franklin-institute-haw-cam

Fingers crossed.

Donegal Browne

 P.S.  Word began to circulate today that feeding behavior may have been observed on the part of Zena on the 927 nest.  No confirmation yet from long time Fifth Avenue Hawkwatchers. 
                           

DEC NECROPSY RESULTS FOR FOUR MANHATTAN HAWKS

                    Intrepid, the Riverside Mom

DEC NECROPSY RESULTS NOW AVAILABLE FOR MANHATTAN RED-TAILED HAWKS

The four red tailed hawks found deceased in and around Manhattan late February and early March 2012, were submitted for examination to the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) Wildlife Health Unit.  Anticoagulant rodenticides were found as the primary cause of death in three of four birds.

DEC’s Wildlife Health Unit performs necropsies (animal autopsies) and diagnostic laboratory tests to identify the causes of sickness and death in New York State’s wild animals.  To improve public communication regarding these and other cases of interest, detailed reports and background information is now available on DEC’s website on the Wildlife Health Program webpage: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/81470.html.

        
            Thanks to Bobby Horvath and Katherine Herzog for the link.

               

    Today's regular post appears beneath this one.

Dongegal Browne

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

Intrepid. the Riverside Mom is Dead-UPDATED

Photo by Donegal Browne

  Intrepid, the Riverside Mom was found dead beneath the tree in which her nest had been built.  There were no apparent injuries.

We called her Intrepid as her first nest, which eventually fell, was situated far out on a limb which bobbed dangerously in the wind and "out on limb" was where she as an urban hawk intrepidly attempted to live her life and where she lost it after loosing eyasses to poison, fledglings to speeding cars and her mate poisoned as well.

 We shall miss her courage, her beauty and her perseverance.
  
May she now rest, finally at peace.

Photo by Donegal Browne

Photo by Donegal Browne

Third hawk found dead in Manhattan park

All three hawks appeared to be healthy and uninjured

Comments (5)

By Lisa L. Colangelo / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hawk-found-dead-manhattan-park-article-1.1036630#ixzz1om5xewgB

For the third time in less than two weeks, a hawk has been found dead in a Manhattan park.
The female hawk, who had nested in Riverside Park for years, was found Friday under the tree where she nested. An Urban Park Ranger picked up the body about 12:30 p.m.
The discovery comes less than two weeks after the body of Pale Male's mate, Lima, was discovered in Central Park. Another hawk was found dead in a section of Central Park near Columbus Circle last Sunday.


"They all appeared to be healthy and didn't have any traumatic injuries," said Bobby Horvath, a wildlife rehabilitator. "It's not like they were hit by a car or crashed into a building."
Horvath said it’s too soon to know for sure if the birds ate a poisoned rat or where they could have picked it up.


"They birds aren't married to these parks, they hunt outside," he said. "High-rise buildings and restaurants still use poison."


Horvath said a fourth hawk was found stumbling in the northern part of Central Park several weeks ago. It died 24 hours later.


The state Department of Environmental Conservation is conducting tests on the dead birds to determine if they were felled by poison or something else.


Birdwatchers in Riverside Park have closely followed the female hawk, who had chicks every year.
"Every year there is a tragedy with this poor bird," said Horvath, who has helped care for the hawk and her offspring over the years. "One year there was storm, the nest blew out of a tree and three babies died and last year her mate was found dead by a Dumpster."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hawk-found-dead-manhattan-park-article-1.1036630#ixzz1olctxt20

A post script, whether Intrepid was poisoned or not, her mate and a number of her offspring have been.  Awhile back,  I was contacted by a maintenance person who works in a building adjacent to Riverside Park.  He told me that the building in which he is employed uses the second generation poison which the slightest ingested amount causes raptors to drop dead.  One bite of poisoned prey of this sort is more than enough.

 Intrepid's mate was found to have been poisoned by a compound which was not one being used in Riverside Park.  And assumption could be made that the rat which poisoned him had been poisoned by someone who laid poison in or directly around a building near to Riverside Park.


Hence not only must we be vigilant about poisons the parks may put down and stress sanitation but to find ways to educate those who live in the buildings of NYC and beyond to investigate the policies of the buildings in which they live and if necessary try to do something about the practice.

 Educating those who don't understand the issues can be instrumental in saving wildlife. In some cities citizens have distributed flyers with the facts concerning secondary poisoning, that not all rat poisons are alike, and that sanitation is the real answer.


We must all do what we can, or soon particularly when it comes to the repercussions of these second generation poisons there will be no more urban hawks. 


In  Central Park and Riverside alone, there are four dead hawks in the last month that we know of.  No we do not know that these four died of poison.  Nor do we know how many more have died in the city that we don't know about but some  will have died due to poison.  Poison that will have been laid by members of our own species who did it because of ignorance or sloth.

What can you do that will make a difference?

MORE TO COME AS WE FIND OUT MORE
NEW UPDATE--
How the news of Intrepid, Riverside Mom's death came to the Hawk Bench--in from Katherine Herzog


While watching Pale Male and Zena on their Fifth Avenue nest from the "Hawk Bench", a Park's Ranger came over to me and told me the body of a Red-tailed hawk was found this morning on the ground in riverside Park underneath an active Red-tailed Hawk nest tree.  He strongly believed it was the female who has been using the nest for the past two years.


That's the 4th red-tail hawk death, that we know of, in Manhattan in a few weeks time-this one in Riverside Park and the other three in Central Park.

Donegal Browne