Oh, Rats! Let's Hope the Dry Ice Works

Following up on my posting of July 5, The Rat Patrol in Tompkins Square Park, there has been some recent publicity about the use of dry ice in the city parks to control the rats.

A Tompkins Square Park "baby" hanging out on a fence, July 27, 2016.

A story on July 25 by The New York Daily News, New York City Hopes to Solve Rat Problem With Dry Ice, quotes the wonderful Laura Goggin, who does such brilliant work chronicling the Tompkins Square Park red-tailed hawks on her blog. The article notes that the city is experimenting with dry ice in the parks.

City Health Dept. Hopes Dry Ice Can Eliminate Its Rodent Problem, on the NY1.com Web site on July 27, notes that the dry ice has reduced the rats in Columbus Park in Chinatown. I was interviewed for the video, but was cut out (no problem!), but you can see a little snippet of me in my pink top and Yankees cap. The interview with Sharron Crocker made it into the report, and she cogently adds the hawk-chaser perspective. 

As I noted in my blog posting, rat poison is a less-than-effective way of controlling rodents, but is so terribly lethal to our red-tailed hawks, pets and other wildlife. I commend the New York City Department of Health for trying a different solution, and the New York City Parks Department for trying to keep poison out of the parks. According to the NY1 report, the dry ice seems to be working.

When I was in Tompkins Square Park on July 26, Christo (the male red-tailed hawk parent) caught and ate a rat. I'll be posting video soon, but here's a still photo. This is what scares us so much — that the hawks will eat a poisoned rat and we will lose these magnificent birds.

Christo eating a rat in Tompkins Square Park, July 26, 2016.

Tompkins Square Park, July 27, 2016.

Tompkins Square Park, July 27, 2016.

I'll be posting more Tompkins Square Park videos soon. In the meantime, here's Part V of the July With the Tompkins Square Hawks series. It covers the afternoon I spent there on July 14. It's long (of course), but just skip around and enjoy these awesome animals.

Splish, Splash! in Tompkins Square Park

Chasing hawks has many, many rewards. One of the most exciting experiences is to see young red-tailed hawks cooling off in the water. I've done a couple of videos already, and here's another. This is Part VIII of the July With the Tompkins Square Park Hawks series. I'm jumping from Part IV to Part VIII, because July 22 was such a great day for watching the babies and a parent. I'll give you Parts V, VI and VII soon.

July 22, in the sprayer area north of the bathrooms in Tompkins Square Park.

The afternoon started out with one baby hawk finding some leftover pigeon on a branch on the east side of the park. We watched the kid for a while, until the youngster flew north. We then found two youngsters (not sure if one was the same one we just had, or the two other kids) in the play area north of the bathrooms. At first they were in trees looking down on the spray, but the day was very, very hot, and the water way too enticing. Down they came! The people were really great, allowing the hawks their time in the water without disturbing them.

Lest you think the kids had no adult supervision, Christo was sitting in the bird bath nearby, keeping an eye on the children. (I think it was Christo. If Dora, let me know!) When the kids flew to a nearby fence, Christo flew to a tree over the water. One of the kids flew over and dislodged him, and he flew south (maybe to another water park?). The kids stayed for a while, drying off.

Children in the water need supervision, and Christo is keeping an eye on them.

I hope you enjoy the video of this wonderful time in Tompkins Square Park. It was such a thrill to be a part of their little hawky lives on one very hot afternoon.

July With the Tompkins Square Hawks: Parts I-IV

I've been going to Tompkins Square Park a lot to see the five red-tailed hawks (two adults and three youngsters), and they have been wildly entertaining. I've posted other videos and photos of these hawks, but am now putting together a series of videos featuring them. 

Tompkins Square Park, July 1, 2016

I'm trying to give a sense of the hawks, how they behave, play, hunt, eat and just hang around. My camera is not great for capturing flight shots or action video, but I do what I can. As with all of my videos, watch what you want, skip around, enjoy them for what they are. They are long, but are sort of a documentation.

These videos are from July 1 (the day I thought I saw rat poison being put out), July 2, July 8 and July 10. I will be adding more later in another posting. I decided not to use music (except music playing in the park), so you'll hear either silence (when my conversation or that of others was particularly inane) or park sounds.

These photos are from July 1. Photos from the other three days will be added to this posting later (still going through them). The first photo is from a smaller little garden area just east of Tompkins Square Park. The fence surrounding the little garden is decorated with art, apparently from found objects. Just delightful. The second photo is of Christo, the red-tailed father. The third photo shows one of his offspring on a branch above him. The offspring is bigger!