Defenders Magazine

The New Urban Flight

These days, city dwellers don't need to go far to spot falcons, hawks and other birds of prey

By Bill Updike

© Jess Lee

Devotees call it “the hawk bench.” At first glance, it’s a bench just like the many others scattered around New York City’s Central Park. What makes this one different is the people who gather there and the animal that piques their interest. The “hawk benchers” arrive as early as 5 a.m., and often don’t leave until after sunset, their eyes baggy and rimmed with indentations from binoculars or spotting scopes. The sight they’ve come to see would have been nearly unimaginable three decades ago: a red-tailed hawk plummeting down from its perch on a high-rise building to snap up an unsuspecting squirrel, pigeon or a tasty city rat.

Seeing the nearly two-foot-long, broad-winged, round-tailed hawks soaring and diving over the park gives the hawkaholics a connection with the wild world normally not available to those that live in metropolises such as New York City. According to E.J. McAdams, the executive director of New York City Audubon, the Central Park hawks give people a “sense that wildlife has returned to the city.”

“I love knowing that, just because I live in a big city, it doesn’t mean that I have to be isolated from the natural world,” says Marie Winn, a regular hawk bencher and author of Red-Tails in Love, a popular book about Central Park’s birds. “I love the feeling of community I’ve found among my fellow Central Park birdwatchers and nature lovers, who, being city dwellers just as I am, might treasure the wilderness in our little urban enclave more than those who live out in the country and in the wide open spaces.”

What the hawk benchers are witnessing in New York is part of a growing phenomenon around the country—the arrival of large birds of prey in the unfamiliar habitat of skyscrapers and roads. Since the 1970s, hawks, falcons and other raptors have populated cityscapes such as New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Montreal, among others. There are many reasons for the raptors’ urban advent, experts say: biologists have reintroduced the birds to urban areas; the harmful pesticide DDT was banned in the United States and Canada; the Endangered Species Act and other environmental legislation offer increased protection for raptors; the loss of wild habitat forces the birds to be more creative; ample perching spots allow raptors to hunt and avoid predators; and prey, such as songbirds, squirrels, pigeons and rats, is abundant year-round.

The glee with which city dwellers like the hawk benchers respond to the birds reflects a lack in our culture; too many people are too removed from nature. “For many urbanites, the raptors are the only contact they have with wildness,” says University of Arizona raptor researcher William Mannan. “There is tremendous aesthetic value to having these creatures in urban settings.”

The joy of recreational viewers is mimicked by the scientists studying these birds, including people such as Robert Rosenfield, a professor of biology at University of Wisconsin­Stevens Point. As a graduate student in 1980, Rosenfield spent weeks looking for Cooper’s hawks in Stevens Point, a city of 25,000 in central Wisconsin. Cooper’s­which are short-winged, long-tailed hawks with blue-gray backs and rusty breasts­were listed as threatened in Wisconsin at the time, and other scientists said that his searches would be in vain, but he persevered. “I spent 10 to 12 hours a day busting a hump. One day I took a break and had driven by a spot with a nest in a tree. I backed up my AMC Gremlin and screeched the brakes. Sure enough, there was a nesting Cooper’s hawk,” Rosenfield recalls. He thought to himself, “Oh my god, I found the nest, and maybe the first in years in Wisconsin.” Rosenfield’s subsequent work has shown that Stevens Point has one of the highest nesting densities for Cooper’s hawks in North America.

Hawks, of course, are just one part of the urban raptor story. Another significant chapter is the comeback of the peregrine falcon­a foot-and-a-half-long bird with pointed wings and a signature black “mustache.” The peregrine, once found throughout the country, was nearly wiped out because of the use of DDT and other pesticides and herbicides, and because of the destruction of its habitat. By 1964, according to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, there were no breeding pairs of peregrine falcons east of the Mississippi River.

The peregrine was listed as endangered in 1970 under a law that preceded the current Endangered Species Act. In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT. The falcons­along with bald eagles and other raptors­began a slow climb back from the brink of extinction. They were given a helping hand by biologists who worked to reintroduce the birds to various urban and wild settings. In 1976, one such scientist, David Bird, a professor of wildlife biology at Montreal’s McGill University, was one of the first to reintroduce peregrines into a city (Montreal).

Today, thanks to the efforts of scientists, conservationists and legislators, peregrine falcons inhabit nearly 100 urban areas in North America. Many cities have several nesting pairs, says Bird. His own hometown of Montreal, which had one pair of peregrines in 1990, now has five pairs. Los Angeles also has five pairs. And the bustling metropolis of Chicago has 10 or more pairs of falcons, much to the delight of residents from all walks of life.

“What continually impresses me [is] the enthusiasm that people from all different backgrounds hold for the falcons; whether they are scientists, attorneys, engineers, window washers, salesmen, etc.,” says Mary Hennen, a scientist who monitors peregrines in Chicago for the Field Museum.

Despite their recent successes, though, urban raptors still face many threats. “There is no doubt that they face mortality that they normally wouldn’t encounter as much­flying into windows, being hit by vehicles, etc.,” says Mannan. Another threat is trichomoniasis, a disease that raptors get from eating pigeons and other doves. In Tucson, where Mannan does his work, research has shown that as many as 40 percent of Cooper’s hawks nestlings die from the disease. Mannan adds that the birds also can be exposed to high levels of toxins, usually as a result of eating prey that has been poisoned.

Allen Fish, director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, works with a number of raptors in the San Francisco area and shares the concern of his fellow scientists. “I suspect the biggest challenge is direct human interference,” he says of his work with Cooper’s hawks in Berkeley, California. There are “just too many people altering the bird’s ability to behave normally.”

“Even though they are avoiding predation, they seem to have found new ways for their young to die,” adds Bird. “They fly into mirrored buildings chasing prey or because of wind shears, fall down chimney shafts, get poisoned from eating pigeons who have been poisoned, and fly into the sides of trains or get hit by cars.”

Despite the challenges, most biologists agree that city raptors are here to stay. The experts say we can help make the birds’ lives easier in several ways. Urban and suburban raptor fans can “encourage the utility industry to employ raptor-safe designs in their power-distribution equipment” so the birds won’t get electrocuted or fly into power lines, says Brian Millsap with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who has worked with bald eagles and owls in urban and suburban Florida. Millsap also recommends driving cautiously in areas frequented by raptors, covering windows to prevent birds from flying into them, and enjoying raptors from a distance, without disturbing them. Finally, he recommends learning “as much as you can about your local raptors so you can be an effective neighborhood advocate.”

One of the best things that people can do, Rosenfield adds, is simply feed the birds on which the raptors prey. Of course, he notes, some people don’t like to see birds eaten by raptors. “I have encountered a number of times when people have a sharp aversion to predator presence. People say ‘we don’t need that predator taking out birds we are trying to feed.’” Some individuals have even asked him to trap and translocate the raptors so that they don’t have to see them.

Those who think pigeons and rats should have free reign over city streets may not herald the new age of urban raptors. The rest of us, who yearn for an experience of wildness in our own backyards or streets, may be found sitting on a bench like the one in Central Park, waiting and watching for the next swooping raptor.

Bill Updike is writer/editor for Defenders, and spends much of his free time photographing raptors and other wildlife.