Like a sloth swimming in a river, I began ornithology all by myself, walking through Kissena Park on a sunny fall day. And in the same way that a mother bird may nurture a young golf ball, a group of ornithologists took me under their wing, my binoculars being an emblem of universal love. Though to do myself justice, I am learning.
Birdwatchers are a community of people unlike anyone else, and I want to talk about the three I met at Kissena Park. Bob approached his ten thousandth sighting of a white-throated sparrow with mouth agape with “oohs and aaahs,” and his feelings were contagious. Colleen stoically recorded an inventory of birds being sighted. (A list of birds seen is attached here: Kissena bird list of this late September day. Eric, honing his skill at the art of pure bird identification, has made intimate acquaintance with the most uncommonly seen, drably colored, and extremely confusing-to-identify migrating birds of autumn with what is almost a sixth sense; he knows a bird by the first glimmer of a silhouette in his peripheral vision.
Eric is most remarkable and it is worth spending a few sentences to talk about him. Every morning he goes out into the city of Queens with binoculars and telescope in hand. He listens to the birds before they are visible every dawn and at dusk he stays out to observe the owls and night-birds. Friends come and go, ornithologists spend cherished moments gleaning off his knowledge and they, too, get tired and go home, but the birds stay awake. Eric observes those seasonal birds that pass by on a day to day basis: one day a Northern Parula, the next day a pine warbler. He gets an intimate sense of the changing seasons in way that perhaps few other people do on our planet. At night he comes home and takes care of his ailing mother. Bob and Colleen told me he is among the top three greatest birdwatchers in New York City. In Kissena Forest, they would call out “chshh cshh cshhh, tetch tetch tetch” to the birds and then they would come out of the thicket and meet their curious friends. Of the thirty-three species seen, including different species of sparrows, cuckoos, creepers, warblers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, wrens, kinglets, and thrush, there were two crown jewels. The two birds that appeared are the most awesome I have viewed in my life. I am sure that I have had opportunities to see such birds pass by in my peripheral vision, but it was not until I took the perspective of a bird-watcher, in three dimensions, with my senses primed, that I was able to see such a thing for the first time.
It was my first sighting ever of a bald eagle, and it happened to be chasing around an osprey! One-half mile away from Colden Auditorium! The bald eagle still had on its immature first year’s plumage, just like in the picture. These are New England’s two largest birds, with a wing span of 79 and 63 inches. One has to imagine why the eagle was chasing the osprey. Bald eagles are known to harass ospreys until they let go of their fish (ospreys are fishing birds), but a fish was not visible in the osprey’s talons. 
One minute later, I had the privilege of seeing the extremely fast and sharp turning aerial dynamics of a sharp-shinned hawk chasing a northern flicker, flying circles around trees just overhead. Curiously, the sharp shinned hawk has a wing span of 23 inches and the northern flicker a wing span of 20 inches. It is called the “flicker” because it displays a flicker of yellow wings upon flight.
Kissena Park has hundreds of bird species that visit at sometime during the year, while the Queens College campus has only about a dozen. The reasons for this have to do with a lack of quality habitat on campus and are described in my post below, “A Single Evening Primrose.”
What Queens College lacks in bird diversity is made up for in bird character. There are a dozen birds commonly seen on campus, each with its own characteristic songs, calls, forms of play, flight patterns, foraging style, community associations, mating behavior, and fear of or tolerance for humans. One may observe the same birds returning to the same place every day, watch their character and develop an intimate relationship with them.
Before storms starlings may be seen amassing on the clock tower in the hundreds. They have a sixth sense of the weather often before we do. A flock of starlings can make short work of a lawn, working in rows, clean sweeping every insect or seed comparable to a vacuum cleaner.
White-throated sparrows congregate in the dozens singing their sweet “Oh, Say, Pee-body Pee-body Pee-body,” hobbling on the sidewalk and eating particles so small that you can’t believe your eyes, or rather their eyes.
Mockingbirds sing out in the open on tree branches; I have observed them singing for ten minutes and never repeating a phrase or a tone. In each phrase they repeat a particular sound four to seven times, imparting to their music a sort of sing-song quality. Last summer there was one individual who would return every day to an ornamental apple tree by the fountain, singing sweetly—I would listen to him on breaks from class. Last spring on the way in from the parking lot to the science building I found a mockingbird nest— several bluish eggs with green speckles!
Our famous red-tailed hawks, with a wing span of 49 inches, can be seen riding thermal vents, soaring high into the sky, conserving energy as they watch for prey with their extremely motion-sensitive eyes. These beauties (I have been told there are several individuals that frequent the campus), used to have a nest on the campus on a fire escape above Colden Auditorium, but this nest has been cleaned off by the maintenance staff. These red-tailed hawks have taken off to New York City and there are several famous individuals who live in and around Central Park.
Other birds include robins, mourning doves, and house sparrows. Some birds flying overhead include Canadian geese and seagulls.
All of the Queens College birds mentioned spend the winter in our area. One migrant bird seen on campus was spotted by Franny Geller: this was a black-throated green warbler, foraging across the grass from Remsen Hall. Reportedly, a bird of similar description was observed by certain members of the biology department in the same place.
It is important to note that bird watching is almost exclusively left to older people from a previous generation. As the elders die off, their store of knowledge dies with them. In this day and age, never have birds been recognized as so valuable to the environment, and never have they received so little attention by young people. I recommend getting in touch with the Queens County Bird Club. They go on walks at Kissena Park every Sunday from 8:30 to 12:30. Eric, Collee, Bob, and myself will be there. You can reach them at http://www.qcbirdclub.org/ .
Cheers,
David Jakim
