TheTHE nNEWSLEewsletteERr ofOF NewNEW YoYORKrk CCIityty AuduboAUDUBONn S P WintRINGe 2016r 2014 / VOLUME / Volume XXXV XXXVII NNo.O. 14 THE URBAN AUDUBON ImprovingImproving HabitatHabitat forfor SongbirdsSongbirds atat JamaicaJamaica BayBay TheThe ExtraordinaryExtraordinary BlackBlack SkimmerSkimmer UpUp onon thethe RoofRoof (In(In Brooklyn)Brooklyn) SPRING 2016 1 66506_NYC_Aud_Spring16.indd 1 2/3/16 8:02 AM NYC AUDUBON MISSION & VISION Mission: NYC Audubon is a grassroots community that works for the protection RESIDENT S ERCH Harry Maas P ’ P of wild birds and habitat in the five boroughs, improving the quality of life for all New Yorkers. pring is arriving, and for me, spring means the beginning of the birding year. Vision: NYC Audubon envisions a day when birds and people in the Millions of birds return from their wintering grounds and pass through New York five boroughs enjoy a healthy, livable City or stay to breed here—and our wintering birds head north to begin their habitat. S breeding season. THE URBAN AUDUBON Spring is also the beginning of the new fiscal year for NYC Audubon (coincidentally… Editors Lauren Klingsberg & I think). It is a good time to reflect on who we are, where we are, and where we are going. Marcia T. Fowle And as my fifth and final year as president comes to an end in June, it seems a good time Managing Editor Tod Winston Newsletter Committee Ellen Azorin, for me to reflect as well. Lucienne Bloch, Ned Boyajian, My first tour of duty for NYC Audubon was serving on the board in the 1980s, the Suzanne Charlé, Diane Darrow, early years of our organization. We had no paid staff, very limited funds, and relied on the Catherine Heller, Mary Jane Kaplan, Abby McBride, Sarah McGullam, board and a few volunteers. Our work was primarily reactive advocacy involving policies Hillarie O’Toole, Jennifer Rauch, or practices we felt were detrimental to birds. We offered a small number of bird walks. Don Riepe, Carol Peace Robins Now, during my second time around, the changes and progress I’ve seen are profound Printing & Mailing Kase Printing, Inc. and amazing: a proactive, engaged board, a growing and professional staff, seasonal interns, Design Whitehouse & Company an enthusiastic and large cast of citywide volunteers, a science team that is nationally Art Director Christina Rubin respected, and a host of corporate, foundation, and individual sponsors and supporters that Publisher NYC Audubon allow NYC Audubon to do all it can for the benefit of birds and their habitats. THE URBAN AUDUBON is published Current programs and activities are listed in this issue of The Urban Audubon and in four times per year (spring, summer, The eGret monthly enewsletter, and can also be viewed at www.nycaudubon.org. Our work fall, and winter) by New York City Audubon Society, Inc. runs the gamut from science-based advocacy and programs such as Project Safe Flight to bird walks in all of the City’s major parks and open spaces. And our reach is citywide, as BOARD OF directors we have an ongoing presence in all five boroughs.. President Harrison D. Maas Executive Vice President David Speiser Where do we go from here? The board faces this question currently as we prepare our Vice President Richard T. Andrias Strategic Plan for 2017 and beyond. The challenges confronting birds and their habitat Treasurer John Shemilt in this city (and, unfortunately, worldwide) are numerous, diverse, and daunting—and Corresponding Secretary Marsilia A. Boyle we aim to continue to grow and expand our programs in order to meet these challenges Recording Secretary Alexander Ewing head on. To do so, we need your support, support you have provided since our inception. Immediate Past President Oakes Ames We also welcome ideas, opinions, or suggestions from every one of you as to what else we Directors Robert Bate; Karen Benfield; Drianne Benner; Alexander Ewing; should be doing and how we can improve what we already do. Please do not hesitate to Andrew Farnsworth, PhD; Marcia T. contact me or anyone on the staff. Your thoughts would be helpful and appreciated. Fowle; Richard Fried, VMD; Catherine In the meantime, get out there and enjoy spring migration. Hundreds of species of Schragis Heller; Sarah Jeffords; Jeffrey Kimball; Lauren Klingsberg; Lawrence birds migrate through New York City each year and stop over to rest and feed. If you have Levine; Eugene Nardelli; Fredric Spar; never spent a sunny day with southerly winds in a city park in April and May, now is the Tom Stephenson time to do so. ADVISORY COUNCIL Happy birding. Sarah Grimké Aucoin; Claude Bloch, MD; Albert K. Butzel; Clifford Case; Rebekah Creshkoff; Andrew Darrell; Joseph H. Ellis; Lynne Hertzog; Mary SEEKING NOMINATIONS FOR Jane Kaplan; Robert J. Kimtis; Kimberly Kriger; Janice Laneve; Pamela Manice; BOARD OF DIRECTORS Peter Rhoades Mott; Dorothy M. Peteet, PhD; Don Riepe; Lewis Rosenberg; YC Audubon is seeking suggestions for nominations to its board of James R. Sheffield directors for three-year terms beginning in June 2016. Please submit EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Nyour suggestions to Alexander Ewing, chair of the nominating Kathryn Heintz committee, at [email protected]. Elections will be held online beginning in May and in-person at our annual meeting on Wednesday, June 8. DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION AND SCIENCE For a final list of nominees, nominee biographies, and details about the election, Susan Elbin, PhD visit www.nycaudubon.org/election2016 after May 1. RECYCLED Supporting responsible use of 2 www.nycaudubon.org forest resources 66506_NYC_Aud_Spring16.indd 2 2/3/16 8:02 AM IN THiS ISSUE SPRiNG 2016 ©Lauren Alleman NYC AUDUBON 71 West 23rd Street Suite 1523 New York, NY 10010 Tel: 212-691-7483 Fax: 646-606-3301 www.nycaudubon.org Cover Photograph: American Redstart ©Lloyd Spitalnik Small Banner Photographs: Susan Elbin, Steve Nanz, and Don Riepe *This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. 6 ©NYC Audubon FEATURES 4 The Extraordinary Black Skimmer: Banding for Understanding by Ellen Azorin 6 Improving Habitat for Songbirds at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge by Lauren Alleman 7 Songbird Survey at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge by Tod Winston 4 13 American Redstart (Setophaga Ruticilla) by Don Riepe ©Fyn Kynd Photography Kynd ©Fyn 13 Take a Picture for D-Bird 14 Birding New York City’s Cemeteries by Mary Jane Kaplan * 15 Freshkills Recycled and Reborn 8 by Cliff Hagen 16 Up on the Roof (In Brooklyn) ©Christina L. Evans ©Christina L. Evans by Suzanne Charlé 18 A Special and Enduring Gift by Kathryn Heintz * 18 Assure Your Own Legacy of Protecting Birds 20 World Premiere: Saving Jamaica Bay 13 DEpARTMEnTS 18 News & Notes 4 Volunteer! 19 Acknowledgments 5 Conservation Notes 20 Annual Report 2015 “Goes Green” 8 Events and Adventures 20 Winter/Spring 2016 Lecture Series 17 Software and Film Reviews and Annual Meeting SPRING 2016 3 THE EXTRAORDINARY BLACK SKIMMER: BANDING FOR UNDERSTANDING Ellen Azorin © L f you don’t live near the seashore, you may not loyd Spitalnik The banding itself is a delicate process and know about the beautiful black skimmer—and occurs just before the chicks fledge. Since the young Ithe very unusual way nature has equipped it to birds are still flightless, the banding team is able catch its food, unlike all other American birds. Its to slowly herd them into a large, temporary corral large red-and-black bill is knife-thin, the lower half installed on the edge of their nesting colony. The protruding beyond the upper. It flies low over the corral fence is just two feet high, allowing the chicks water on long, black-and-white wings, skimming the to see and hear the adults nearby. One at a time, each surface with its lower mandible and clamping down chick is carefully picked up and held securely by one on any small fish it encounters. person, while another attaches an aluminum band In the New York City area, we’re fortunate to with a unique identifying code issued by the United host two locations where black skimmers nest: one States Fish & Wildlife Service to one of its legs. If in Breezy Point on Jamaica Bay in Queens, the other the chick is large enough, a second band—brightly on Nickerson Beach in Hempstead, Long Island. colored for easy spotting from a distance—is placed (A third colony may be starting on the Arverne on the opposite leg. Once the chick is banded, it is beaches in the Rockaways, and nesting also occurs released to rejoin its parents. in several locations further east on Long Island.) The hope is that by banding a large number of This remarkable bird is considered a “high priority species of greatest chicks from colonies in both New York and New Jersey, the research conservation need,” according to the New York State Department team will be able to answer many questions about the population size, of Environmental Conservation. So these nearby locations offer a distribution, local movement, and full life-cycle habitat needs of black rare opportunity to study and better understand the birds’ ecology skimmers—here in New York City and along the eastern seaboard. and behavior. This is being accomplished, starting this spring, via With better understanding, wildlife managers will be able to achieve a banding project conducted cooperatively by the New York State significant conservation goals for this vulnerable beach-nesting species. Department of Environmental Conservation, NYC Audubon, and the And if you haven’t done so already, perhaps you will be lucky Town of Hempstead Department of Conservation and Waterways. Our enough one day to observe the magnificent black skimmer as it streaks own Susan Elbin, director of conservation and science, is one of the across coastal waters’ surface, snapping up prey in its beak and soaring certified master banders involved in this project.