Breakfast Links: Central Park Wildlife Edition
So I came across a couple bird stories yesterday and then was at a friend’s picnic in Central Park yesterday when I had my own close encounter. Good times, I love NYC for realz.
First of all check out this guy who’s freed some kestrels back into Central Park. Turns out that NYC has one of the strongest populations of these little predators - which is by any measure, odd if you really think about it. Odd and fantastic. Ever since I somehow got my hands on an Audobon Society bird book when I was like 9, I’ve been fascinated by Kestrels. Gyrfalcon’s, too, but it’s possible I was swayed by the name. You have to admit, that’s an awesome name. Ah well, Pale Male get’s all the attention but I’m glad we’ve got all these other guys around, too. Sadly, apparently, one pair of Kestrel’s nests too close to Pale Male and Lola and their fledgelings often get eaten up by the bigger falcons. Sad. Anyway, click thru to see a ton of great pictures and videos.
Tooling around on that site led me to this page on Central Park owls!! Apparently there’s some eastern screech owls living in Central Park which completely kicks ass. Even better is the fact that people go out, somehow find them and take copious photos of them, even at night. I want to go see that! I suspect, though, that it might involve patience which I’m not so good at. Sigh.
Finally, as I mentioned I was hanging out at Central Park last evening when everyone noticed a bunch of raccoons hanging out nearby. Nearby enough that one sauntered up to us to check out what was on the menu. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a raccoon so close up and it was pretty freakin’ awesome. There were a couple youngins around and I learned that raccoons climb trees. Huh! Who knew. It also turns out that they aren’t so good at climbing down trees, which was pretty funny to watch. All the rest of the few people in the park at the time were also pretty fascinated by it, there must’ve been at least 6 of them around and they’d walk up cautiously to folk but any kind of quick movement would send them off. Sadly it was a bit dark there and my camera at max zoom in low light conditions does not equal good pictures. Sigh.
UPDATE: Now we have coyotes?? Baby ones?? Nice.
