Saturday afternoon, at 4:30, Shulian and I met up at the Central Park Belvedere Castle to meet with one of the park rangers.  We had to wait a bit for the ranger to arrive to speak to us, but while we waited, we were thinking of good questions to ask the ranger. 

The park ranger, named Sunny, took us into a small room to do the interview.  The minute we saw her, she was very nice to us and we could tell she would be helpful in answering any questions.  We filmed the interview (but then my camera ran out of memory, so I took notes for some parts of it!). 

At first, Shulian and I only had about five or six questions to ask.  I was picturing us having no more questions to ask and the interview sadly being over in fifteen minutes.  But that is not what happened!  We thought up really good questions on the spot, as we went along with the interview.  Like Bob DeCandido, and the people on the bird walk, I could tell that Sunny was very passionate about the owls. 

We learned a lot of helpful information from Sunny (this is not in any particular order):

·      The owls are not really kept track of, except updates that the park rangers hear from park visitors.

·      Sometimes the owls will fly out of the park, around the borders of it, because there is food out there on the city streets.  However, they will definitely come back into the park because that is where their habitat and nesting areas are. 

·      Sunny believes that the reason for the owls’ original disappearance in the 1950’s was because of habitat loss—owls lived in dead trees, and foresters removed the dead trees to make the park look more presentable, causing the owls to lose their homes.  However, foresters today usually check out the tree before cutting it down.

·      We were wondering why the owls couldn’t just move to another tree after their home got cut down.  Sunny told us that owls get stressed out if their home is gone all of a sudden.  Their stress could cause them not to eat, killing the owls because of dehydration and malnutrition.  However, some owls will go find another tree to live in, and survive. 

·      She also believes cutting off tree branches (which won’t kill the tree, it’s just to maintain it) would cause owls to disappear—owls roost on branches and hunt from them. 

·      One of the possible reasons for the disappearance of owls now is probably because of lack of food—people poison rodents because they don’t like them, and then owls eat those poisoned rodents, causing them to get poisoned themselves.  There is no poisoning of rodents actually in the park, but those rodents run in from the outskirts of the park (apartment buildings and such).  This is one way the public can help in maintaining the existence of screech owls in the park—don’t poison rodents!

·      Last winter, there were six owls (three mating pairs) seen in the park, but now there are probably more because they have all had babies, causing them to multiply more quickly.  Now, Sunny believes that there is a “steady state” of owl existence.

·      For some reason, last year, owls nested near streetlights.  Sunny questioned this because owls are known to be nocturnal, having light-sensitive eyes.  She believes that, after having lived in the park, the owls’ eyes have adapted to light a little bit. 

·      Since there are more cars, there are less sparrows.  Since owls eat sparrows sometimes, we wonder if the decline in sparrows caused a decline in owls.

·      We asked Sunny what she thought of the bird call machine that Bob DeCandido was using.  She believed that it was an interference during mating time, because an owl might think it is another owl and want to mate with it.  Sunny is not totally against the machines though. 

·      The rehabilitated owls in Central Park come from the Raptor Trust in New Jersey (which we are planning to visit!).  Sometimes birds are taken from the wild to live in captivity if they are so badly injured that they cannot survive in the wild.  We were wondering if the birds seemed to miss the wild, or if they adapted.  Sunny said it was hard to tell. 

·      The borough that currently has the most owls in New York City is the Bronx, in Van Cortland Park and Pelham Park. 

Sunny said that an important part of keeping the owls in New York City parks is understanding their basic facts.  For example, knowing what they eat!  That is where owl pellets come in.  Shulian and I thought it would be a good idea to educate the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th graders by dissecting owl pellets—it would also be something fun for them to do! 

         Sunny the park ranger was extremely helpful with this project, and she was really interested in what we were doing.  We have to remember to send her a thank-you note!