Ava-2/14/09-Bird and Owl Walk at the Botanical Gardens
Saturday morning, Shulian couldn’t make it so I went alone with my mom to the New York Botanical Garden. At ten o’clock, we went on a bird and owl walk lead by bird-and-owl-expert Robert DeCandido. He is the man who first reintroduced screech owls into Central Park, when the owls were nowhere to be seen in New York after fifty years. Shulian and I will also be doing our main interview with Robert DeCandido.
This visit was more of an introduction to the topic, and a chance to meet Robert DeCandido, as opposed to an interview. However, it really helped me with Shulian’s and my project!
Although I was pretty freezing, going on this walk was an amazing experience!!! At first, I felt out of place. All the people that were there were wise old bird experts. It was really funny because these people had giant high-tech binoculars and huge cameras with foot-long lenses, and my mom and I were standing there with small binoculars that were out of focus and a digital camera! It was so obvious they really knew what they were talking about. There was this small bird in a tree, and my mom and I were questioning what kind of bird it was. One lady came up and said, “Oh, that’s a North-eastern white-bellied chickadee,” or something like that. I was thinking, “How do they know that!” Even though these people were more experienced with birds than we were, everyone was very nice and made us feel included during the walk.
We saw many birds on the walk…chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, hawks, white-bellied crossbills, nuthatches, and turkeys. Everyone was holding out their hands with sunflower seeds on them and chickadees actually landed on our hands and ate the food that we were holding! It was amazing, and I could not believe it! I could feel their little feet on my hand, and got to see how beautiful they were up close (I will upload pictures of this when I get them, by Wednesday).
Bob DeCandido was trying to get the birds near us by using a bird-calling machine, which made it sound like real bird calls were all around us. It was interesting because there was another bird-walking group that was getting mad at our group because they thought using the bird-calling machine was interrupting wildlife, and tricking the birds. Although I can see both sides of the situation, this lady was being very nasty.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find any screech owls, but we found something very valuable…owl pellets! They were everywhere around the trees where the owls live. They were real owl pellets! I gathered some up in a bag. I found it very generous when Bob said, “If you find any owl pellets, give them to Ava for her project!” Everyone, with their high-tech birding equipment and brains full of bird knowledge, kindly gave me what they found. I have a feeling that Bob is going to be very helpful during our future visits.
When I got home, I dissected the owl pellets using tweezers and a small brush (it reminded me of fourth grade!). Because they weren’t sterilized, I used medical gloves. I found many bones and kept them for future reference. (See the pictures below.) I think it is important for me to dissect these owl pellets since Shulian and I are thinking of incorporating the dissection of pellets into our Teach-In presentation.
I learned many interesting things during the walk. When we found a pigeon feather on the ground, one lady concluded that it was a left wing feather. She said the spine of the feather is usually closer to the front, and it points downward. I found this very interesting, and I will find out if that is true for owls too. I also learned that great-horned owls are much more common in New York City than screech owls…I wonder why.
This was so amazing, and I feel like I was one of the “birding people.” It is so cool to know that people could have so much passion for birds and owls like this, and I really appreciate their appreciation for animals and nature. I am so glad that these are the people who Shulian and I are talking to for this project.
