Kew Gardens apartment complex carries out tree massacre

"Dear Crappie,

This is what the management company did to the tenants of a garden apartments in Kew Gardens, without a word. The residents awoke to the sounds of chainsaws and they are in shock and can’t really believe it happened. Mature trees that were there for many years and provided a beautiful green space for the residents including the birds and squirrels were gone in a day.

Many of the people are mad but there is nothing they can do. They were given no warning or reasons for doing this. Were the large trees a liability from falling branches? They could have been pruned. Were they causing structural damage to the foundation? Only those trees should be removed. Were they causing the gutters to clog? They could install screens.

The plan they posted is to make a formal English Garden with shrubs and sitting areas. This is nesting season for birds, hopefully many of them will relocate to Maple Grove Cemetery." - Rich
_______________________________

Unfortunately, any nestlings in those trees who could not yet fly were most likely destroyed even though some of them fall under the protection of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. You may want to contact your local congress person. - QC

Quit yer squawkin'!

From DNA Info:

A recently installed alarm which seeks to deter birds from gathering at the Rego Center Mall has confused and annoyed some shoppers as well, locals said.

The alarm, which emits loud sounds of chirping birds, was installed several weeks ago at an atrium near the escalator by Bed, Bath & Beyond to deter pigeons and other birds flocking to the area, mall employees said.

The atrium, featuring several planters and benches, is where customers can rest or wait for their family members shopping around the mall.

But scores of birds also chose the spot to build their nests there, often forcing shoppers to sit among thick layers of pigeon droppings.

And while the deterrents seem to effectively scare the birds off, some shoppers said the sounds emitted by the alarm are “annoying.”

Sound alarms are one of several methods used to deter birds throughout the city. Other deterrents include ultrasonic devices that make sounds that are unbearable to pigeons, but can’t be heard by people, a method sometimes used by the MTA.

Eagles have landed at FMCP

From NY1:

If you take a walk through Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, you can find a variety of species. But a pair of bald eagles are definitely getting a lot of attention.

"This year, we finally confirmed that we have two adults again," said Jeffrey Kollbrunner, a local wildlife and nature photographer. "It looks like they are a pair or trying to become a pair, which is exciting for our area."

Kollbrunner has two decades of experience documenting birds in Queens. He has spotted immature bald eagles in the area over the past seven years but says the mature eagles have been sighted more recently, in the past two years.

"Having these birds of prey are phenomenal for the region, and you know, people can enjoy them from a distance," Kollbrunner said.

That's exactly what we did. We spotted one of the eagles sitting on ice in the lake. Twenty minutes later, he had company.

Kollbrunner says the state's conservancy efforts have proven successful.

Bird strikes up despite goose slaughter

From CBS New York:

Bird strikes affecting flights are on the rise in the Tri-State area.

As WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported, a new report suggests the problem keeps getting worse.

There were 175 bird strikes last year at LaGuardia Airport — the most since the FAA started tracking the incidents in 1990.

So the millions of dollars that taxpayers have spent to kill birds in NYC parks that the government deemed a threat to aircraft were actually thrown down the toilet? When is that waste of a program going to end as it has just been proven to be ineffective and unnecessary?

Glendale birds fall victim to carelessness

From the Queens Chronicle:

[Paul] Graziano went to the site — on Union Turnpike between Myrtle Avenue and 88th Street — to collect the small birds. The poor creatures were covered in the white tar all over their bodies and wings, and one of the two had its beak sealed shut.

Someone had caulked a gap in the sidewalk next to a fire hydrant, which Graziano said implies that a city contractor was involved. “This is negligent on part of the city for not taking proper precautions. If whoever laid the cement down would have waited for it to dry or at least protected the area, this would not have happened,” he said.

It was 7 p.m. on a Saturday when Graziano rescued the birds, so many veterinarian offices were closed. A 24-hour animal care center in Manhattan told him it could try its best to help the birds, but that the best thing to do would be to euthanize them. Graziano found this to be unacceptable and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He picked up Palmolive and Dawn dish soap, which is what wildlife rehab centers use on animals caught in oil spills. He proceeded to remove the caulk with the soap, a small needle and a tiny pair of sewing scissors, working for six hours. He was successful in removing almost all of the material and the sparrow that had its beak closed was able to open its mouth, but it died an hour later.

The second bird only had a little left on one of its wings and tail feathers, and started to fly around Graziano’s kitchen after being cleaned. He wanted to keep the bird in a box under a heat lamp outside, but the bird escaped and flew into the trees behind his yard in Flushing.

This is not the first time Queens has seen such an incident which, for Graziano, is a big issue. In July 2012, the same situation of small birds trapped in cement filler occurred on 67th Avenue in Rego Park, and was covered by NBC news. (See video above) “It’s standard procedure to cover this wet rubber tar with plastic while it’s drying and remove it the next day, which they failed to do back in 2012 and again last week,” Graziano explained.

Baby falcons hatched on Throgs Neck Bridge

From CBS New York:

A dozen new peregrine falcon chicks have been born atop the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge, the agency said.

The falcons remain on the New York State’s endangered birds list.

The MTA has participated in the state’s nesting program since 1983, providing a nesting box atop the bridges, the agency said.

The eagles have landed

From the Queens Chronicle:

Two adult and two immature bald eagles have been spotted flying around Queens for some time now, according to Jeff Kollbrunner, a photographer from Briarwood.

“I’ve seen the four of them since September and some eagles as far back as six years,” Kollbrunner said.

Ozone Park mailboxes need some TLC

From The Forum:

At least two blue US Postal Service mailboxes have become sources of disdain in the communities of Ozone Park and Howard Beach, and the agency pledged to the Forum this week to make them right again.

The mailbox located on the corner of 97th Street and 133rd Avenue in Ozone Park is covered in bird feces, nearly from top to bottom, and a bird carcass was left this week right next to it. The condition of the mailbox and the overpowering area odor have precluded some residents from using it.

“It’s been like this for a long time,” said Joe Fontanes, who has lived a block away from the box for the past 19 years. “Sometimes I’ll walk down 96th [Street] to avoid it.”

Fontanes posited that the culprit is the tree branches above the mailbox.

“It’s not a question of repainting it,” he said. “They’ve got to move it away from this area where the birds nest.”

On Cross Bay Boulevard, between 157th and 158th avenues, sits another blue USPS mailbox covered in graffiti. On one side is a phrase written large in bright-green ink that can’t be repeated in a family newspaper.

A spokeswoman for the USPS said that both boxes will be taken care of as soon as possible.

The parrots of Queens

From the NY Times:

Queens is not the only place the tropical green birds have become firmly entrenched. Fifty years after exotic bird importers began carting them here from their native South America, the parrots have nestled into other neighborhoods in the city and beyond.

The best guess on their citywide population is around 550, though biologists say bird counts often capture just a tenth of their true totals. The parrots have set up colonies in at least 10 states, including Florida, Texas, Illinois and Oregon. They dappled European skies, breeding in England and Spain.

Today in Brooklyn, their pile-of-twig nests are built in the iron gates of Green-Wood Cemetery. They have made homes in Upper Manhattan and amid the trees in Riverside Park. They are in Whitestone and Flushing, Queens. They have built nests in Edgewater, N.J., in the slopes along River Road, an undulating bicycle path in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge, said Corey Finger, of Forest Hills, Queens, a co-owner of the birding blog 10,000 Birds.

But Queens has extended the birds perhaps the biggest welcome.

State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., who can see one of their nests from the windows of his district office in Howard Beach, is pushing two bills he introduced in 2010 to protect the parrots (also known as parakeets), though neither has passed. One would put them in a protected category. The other would require their nests be handled with care if they have to be moved. The senator says seeing the “green, rather large, rather unique-sounding parakeet” among pigeons fascinates New Yorkers.

JFK is a killing field

From DNA Info:

Wildlife control contractors have shot almost 26,000 birds at John F. Kennedy International Airport over the past five years to stop them interfering with passenger flights — including more than 1,600 protected birds the airport did not have express permission to kill, internal records show.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, was granted limited permission to shoot "problem" species — mainly seagulls, geese and mourning doves — named on a special kill permit issued each year by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

But the authority's own records show that between 2009 and 2013, they killed 1,628 birds from 18 different species that are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and are not named on the permits.

That list includes snowy egrets, red-winged blackbirds and American kestrels.

"It appears they will kill anything they see and they don't think twice about it," said Jennifer Barnes, an attorney with animal advocacy group Friends of Animals which recently filed a federal lawsuit to suspend the killing of all migratory birds at Kennedy.

People pollute NY waters frequently, but swans must die?

From the Daily News:

The oil-soaked razorbill that waddled onto the beach in Far Rockaway last month was just the tip of the iceberg.

A January tugboat accident spilled between 6,000 and 8,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the waters, a measure that far exceeds the level of damage first indicated by Department of Environmental Conservation officials.

Meanwhile, as many as 10 birds may have been drenched in oil when the tug Sea Lion took on water, sinking just outside Atlantic Beach.

But wildlife rehabilitators who received several waterfowl covered in muck suggested the number of sickened sea birds could be much higher.

But according to DEC, it's swans that are responsible for the destruction of native wildlife and must be destroyed. Somehow I don't think their alleged crimes compare to all that humans have done to the environment.

DEC plans to kill every swan in state

From WPIX:

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) proposes to kill or capture all mute swans by 2025 because of their aggressive nature and threat to native wildlife.

According to the plan, adult swans on public land will be shot or euthanized and their nests and eggs destroyed

The proposed policy follows other states like Michigan and Maryland, who also determined this non-native bird as too much of a threat to local wildlife.

DEC has also announced 115 other native species may be outlawed.

Mute swans are the largest bird in New York with a 7-foot wingspan, and weigh 20-25 pounds. They are known for their orange and black bills.

“I don’t know why they would pick on mute swans,” said Sally Newbert, who works on the board of the Eastern Long Island Audubon Society. “They’re beautiful birds.”

The swans were originally brought from Europe for their aesthetic value in the 1800s, and privately bred.

Nassau SPCA spokesman Gary Rogers says the mute swans should not be eliminated, “We have brought these animals here, and we have a responsibility to find a way to manage these animals better, but to completely say, ‘We’re basically going to eradicate them’ — what’s next?"

Here's where you can comment and here's a petition against it.

Forest Hills chicken is happy at farm

From DNA Info:

Queeny, the tiny hen who delighted Forest Hills residents for a year by prancing along 71st Avenue and Station Square, is thriving in her new home at an upstate farm animal sanctuary, the owner of the farm said.

“She lives the best life,” said Kurt Andernach, 50, of the 60-acre And-Hof-Animal Sanctuary in Catskill, N.Y., where Queeny was taken just before Hurricane Sandy.

Queeny, a Bantam Araucana hen who ate bagels and blocked traffic in Forest Hills, now hangs out with a flock of seven other chickens of the same breed. Among her "best friends" are two roosters, Henry and Herbert, and a hen named Silly, Andernach said.

Most of the Bantam chickens at the animal sanctuary were rescued from post offices, after the birds were injured during shipping or people who ordered them failed to pick them up, he said.

Queeny was taken upstate just before Hurricane Sandy hit, after a group of Forest Hills residents worried the chicken would not survive winter and the dangers of Queens traffic, and asked Andernach to take her in.

Bloomberg really wants trash near LaGuardia runway

From the Daily News:

The Bloomberg administration was crowing Tuesday about a court victory against opponents of a garbage transfer station near LaGuardia Airport in Queens.

The opponents claim the trash will attract birds, posing a threat to aircraft like the US Airways plane that pilot Chesley Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River after a bird strike in 2009.

Sullenberger last year lent his voice to the opposition.

But the administration insists the College Point transfer station will be safe. Various courts have now ruled 11 times “against those who don’t want to bear their fair share” of the garbage load, a Bloomberg spokesman said in a statement.

I guess all the other crap that the administration has dumped on College Point over the years doesn't count.

Red-tailed hawks near Rufus King Park

From DNA Info:

Seven years ago, when Thomas Crater looked through the bedroom window of his sixth-floor apartment in Jamaica, he saw a big bird sitting on his fire escape.

“At first I thought it was an owl,” he said.

The unusually large bird, which turned out to be a red-tailed hawk, was sitting and watching the surrounding buildings and streets from the rail on the top floor. The raptor must have liked the location and has continued coming back, keeping Crater company.

Last fall, the bird, now even bigger, found a mate and the pair hangs out on his fire escape on 164th Street, near 89th Avenue, about seven blocks from the popular Rufus King Park, where the hawks have also been spotted.

It’s a love-hate relationship, jokes Crater, who said he both admires and fears the birds. He watches them with a wary respect as they sit on his fire escape for up to an hour, searching for prey below.

Peacock corralled again

From NBC:

It's back to school for a Queens peacock that escaped earlier this summer from a local high school and was seen wandering the neighborhood.

The peacock is back at John Bowne High School in Kew Gardens Hills, where it is part of a menagerie of animals that live at the school.

An employee of the school told NBC 4 New York that the agricultural department at the high school keeps lizards, turtles, parrots and other birds at their campus, which is half a mile from where the bird was spotted in Kew Gardens Hills.

The elusive bird was finally nabbed by Animal Care and Control of New York City, which returned it to John Bowne, officials there confirmed Friday.

Did John Bowne's peacock escape?

From the NY Times:

One man, waiting for the bus near the Georgetown Mews, a residential co-op complex, offered a sound guess: John Bowne High School, in Flushing. It is only half a mile away from Jewel Avenue and Main Street, the site of one peacock sighting.

The school has an agricultural program and many animals on its campus, including, as it turns out, two peafowls.

A secretary at the school said the bird might be theirs. “The peacock gets out and he comes back,” she said. “He wanders.”

A spokeswoman for the New York City Education Department, Marge Feinberg, said she could not confirm if the school was missing a peacock.

“It’s possible one got out,” she said. “We’re checking.”

Someone at Breezy Point pilfered plover eggs

From DNA Info:

Cops are on the hunt for the bird-brained bandit who swiped all of the eggs from two piping plover nests in Breezy Point, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area where the endangered animals live.

Authorities are hunting for an individual who went up to the two nests on the night of July 3rd, ripped off the wire netting protecting them and swiped the eggs inside, U.S. Park police said.

They believe that one person is responsible because a single set of human footprints was found in the sand.

Piping plovers are considered endangered birds and individuals convicted of violating the law that protects them can be slapped with a hefty fine ranging from $5,000 to $ 250,000 or be tossed behind bars for up to two years, authorities said.

DOT's paving is killing birds

From NBC:

Queens residents are working to rescue birds who keep getting stuck in cement filler in Queens. Andrew Siff has the story.

Banding owls at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge