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Central Park

A statue of Balto in Central Park. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Roman Eugeniusz

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

While most of us know “of the famous ride of Paul Revere,” quoting Longfellow, there is another ride that happened 100 years ago that we can commemorate. It has to do with one of my favorite dogs. His name was Balto, an Alaskan husky and sled dog born in Nome, and he led a team of sled dogs, driven by Gunnar Kaasen and carrying vital diphtheria antitoxin through fierce Alaskan storms across the wilderness and into history. 

The serum was desperately needed to combat an outbreak of the disease. Planes such as they were in 1925, were grounded by the intense weather. The only hope for rescue was with the perilous trip by sled. Kaasen insisted that Balto was the true hero. A movie, a nationwide tour on the vaudeville circuit and a bronze statue in Central Park resulted.

Now I visited Central Park most Sundays, when the weather permitted, throughout my elementary school years, with my dad and younger sister. It was my dad’s way of giving my mother a few hours off and of having some time with us since he worked six days a week, left early in the morning, and only returned for a late dinner. He would cook us breakfast, and then we would walk through the Park, taking a different route each time until my mother would join us in the late afternoon with a picnic supper. 

Most often, he made sure our meanderings took us past the statue of Balto. I would climb up on the rock on which he stood, then sit astride his back, and listen as my dad read the words on the plaque adorning the site “dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925: endurance, fidelity, intelligence” Visuals of the trip would run through my mind as I sat there, courtesy of Jack London, whose books I read. I loved Balto.

But there is quite a back story.

For starters, Balto was an underdog in a literal sense. He was owned by Leonhard Seppala, a native Norwegian, sled dog breeder, musher and competitive racer, and was named after an Arctic explorer. Balto had a black fur coat, a small, stocky build with two white stocking front feet and was considered “second rate” as a racer by Seppala, who had him neutered at six months and used him to haul freight for short runs and help pull railcars with miners over a disused railroad track. Gunnar Kaasen, another native Norwegian and a close family friend of Seppala, with 21 years of dog sledding experience who worked for the breeder, came to know Balto and believed Seppala had misjudged the dog because of his short stature.

Early in 1925, doctors realized a deadly diphtheria epidemic could affect the  people of Nome, Alaska, and putting the city under quarantine, transmitted with Morse code that the town desperately needed more serum, whose supply was almost depleted. Mushers were summoned to relay the precious cargo. Radio, a recent invention, picked up the story, as well as newspapers, and followed the more than 20 mushers as they took turns through storms and strong winds. Kaasen was appointed to drive a team of Seppala’s dogs, and although Seppala wanted a dog named Fox to lead the team, Kaasen picked Balto. They left the town of Bluff with the antitoxin at 10 p.m.

Shortly after they started, a blizzard caused them to become confused and lost. Kaasen yelled, “Go home, Balto,” and the dog, used to hauling heavy loads, navigated his team through the wild winds. At one point, Balto unexpectedly stopped before some ice on the Topkok River that broke in front of him, thereby saving Kaasen’s life and that of the entire team, according to the musher. The package was delivered in time, and the residents were saved.

There is more to the story. Especially as money entered the picture, lies and deception, jealousy and hatred all became part of the human saga. But Balto will always remain my 100-year-old dog. 

Flaco spotted in Central Park over the summer. Photo by by Gil Yang

By Patrice Domeischel

It was inevitable. Life for any bird is fraught with perils. That Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl illegally released over one year ago from the confines of his lifetime home in the Central Park Zoo would survive despite having no life experience outside his enclosure, would be nothing short of a miracle. 

We had all waited, expecting the worst. Would he make it?  The tentative answer appeared to be “Yes”. And it did seem that he just might have bucked the odds as instinct kicked in, and he mastered the unfamiliar, urban environment.

Flaco spotted in Central Park over the summer. Photo by by Gil Yang

Birders, photographers, city residents, tourists, all wanted a glimpse of the famous escapee owl. He delighted all who viewed him as he perched at some of his regular Central Park haunts, and later in the Upper West Side neighborhoods of Manhattan. Flaco had become a symbol of freedom, surprising and eluding those who sought to bring him back to the zoo’s safe confines. To New Yorkers and out-of-towners alike, some whom had never seen any owl, Flaco was an avian celebrity.  

Then our greatest fears were realized.  Flaco became one of up to one-billion birds EACH year that die in the United States alone after flying into windows, his death determined to have been caused by “traumatic impact.” And although a necropsy report indicated Flaco’s good condition, his weight only slightly less than when last taken at the zoo, he may also have been exposed to infectious diseases like West Nile Virus or Avian Influenza, and/or toxins including rodenticides that would have weakened him, contributing to the strike.

Now Flaco has become another painful window-collision statistic. His passing shines a harsh light on this serious issue. Window strikes can occur at any time of year, but take place most often during spring and fall migration when billions of birds travel to and from breeding and wintering grounds. Strike incidents occur with great regularity when birds collide with the highly reflective glass used in building construction. Birds see the reflections in these panes as a continuation of the natural landscape and attempt to fly through them. Most collisions occur with the windows of one-and-two story buildings; many are residential homes.

Flaco the owl in his Central Park Zoo enclosure. Photo by Mary Lor

But there may be a silver lining to this tragedy. The urgent need to protect birds from death caused by window strikes has already resulted in legislation in New York City that requires the use of bird-friendly materials in new construction.  The City also has a lights-out requirement for city-owned and city-managed buildings. In Albany also, a bill is now on the table that requires the incorporation of bird-friendly designs into new or altered-state buildings in New York State. Maybe Flaco’s needless end will help to propel the bill to completion and law.

What can you do? We all have the power to make a difference. We can prevent window-strike collisions at our own homes and in the community. Simply affixing decals that reflect ultraviolet sunlight, or that create visual interference, on problem windows can dramatically cut strike numbers. Birds detect the stickers, recognize something to avoid, and fly elsewhere.

Flaco will be remembered always in the hearts of New Yorkers; we mourn his loss.  But his name will live on in the meaningful and important legislation now on the table in Albany, a bill renamed the FLACO ACT: “Feathered Lives Also Count,” after this iconic and charismatic raptor.  

Note: Do you know of a building prone to window strikes? Let us know at: [email protected].

Learn more at these and other websites:

American Bird Conservancy

Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP)

windowalert.com

featherfriendly.com

theaudubonshop.com

Author Patrice Domeischel is a board member of the Four Harbors Audubon Society.

Central Park. Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

man I never met had a profound effect on my early life. Indeed, I could not have met him since his 200th birthday was this past Tuesday.

There are millions of others whose lives he has touched and continue to touch all over the country. His name is Frederick Law Olmsted, and along with a colleague, Calvert Vaux, he designed Central Park in the late 1850s. He went on to design many other parks and public spaces, but Central Park was his first. 

Olmsted was more than a landscape architect, and his philosophy and appreciation of community and human nature were built into his designs. Proving that I am not the only one who feels his importance, I was pleased to notice a special section about Olmsted published in Tuesday’s New York Times. All subsequent quotes are from that section, written by Audra D.S. Burch, with sayings from essays of Frederick Law Olmsted.

“In plots of earth and green, Olmsted saw something more: freedom, human connection, public health…Olmsted’s vision is as essential today as it was more than a century ago. His parks helped sustain Americans’ mental and physical health and social connections during the darkest days of the pandemic. As COVID-19 lockdowns unlaced nearly every familiar aspect of life, parks were reaffirmed as respite, an escape from quarantine.”

Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park. Pixabay photo

And this from Olmsted: “The park should, as far as possible, complement the town. Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings… The enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it, tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus through the influence of the mind over the body, gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system… We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day’s work is done, and where they may stroll for an hour, seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle and jar of the streets, where they shall, in effect, find the city put far away from them.” 

When people ask me where I grew up, I answer, “New York City,” but I should answer “Central Park.” 

Almost every Sunday without inclement weather, my dad would take us to the park for the day, giving my mom time for herself. It worked out splendidly for him because he grew up on a farm and never liked the urban surroundings in which we lived. It also gave him some uninterrupted time with us since we didn’t see much of him during the work week. And of course it was welcomed by my mother, who then had a chance to sleep in and tend to her own needs. 

Dad would awaken early, make us a creative breakfast that always involved eggs and braised onions plus whatever other ingredients happened to be in the fridge. Never were two Sunday breakfasts the same. Then we would go off, my younger sister and I with him, to “The Park.” 

There were many different destinations once we left the street and stepped into the greenery. We roamed along countless paved paths, over charming bridges and through tunnels (always yodeling for the echo effect), climbed rocks, crossed meadows, watched baseball games on several ballfields, played “21” on the basketball courts (if we had remembered to bring a basketball), watched older men competitively play quoits (pitching horseshoes) and munched on crackerjacks — my dad limiting the three of us to one box. I usually got the prize since my sister wasn’t interested. 

On beautiful days, when longer walks beckoned, we would visit the merry-go-round and ride until we were dizzy. Or we would spend the afternoon at the small zoo. My dad taught me to row on the Central Park lake. And always the air was fresh, the seasons would debut around us, the birds would sing and the squirrels would play tag through the trees.

By pre-arrangement, my mom would appear with a pot of supper, some paper plates, forks and a blanket, and we would eat in a copse or a thicket of brush. Then, as the sun was setting, we would walk home together.

Photo from Pixabay

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

For the past week, I’ve had birds on my brain.

For starters, Central Park birders headed to the famous urban greenway recently to catch sight of a snowy owl, the first time people documented the presence of the bird in the park in about 130 years. 

I wrote to a bird expert, Noah Strycker, who is both a celebrated avian author, having written “Birding without Borders,” and a master’s candidate at Stony Brook University in the laboratory of Heather Lynch, a penguin scientist and the IACS Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution.

Strycker responded to numerous questions about the owl and the snowstorm that blanketed the region earlier this week.

In response to a question about exactly what might bring a snowy owl to the city, Strycker suggested that these birds often “irrupt,” a word for traveling greater distances than normal, south from their normal Arctic range in winters following good breeding summers. 

“Their appearance in New York may be related to an abundance of lemmings in the Arctic last summer,” Strycker wrote. In other words, these well-fed birds may have been able to journey further from the Arctic after a bountiful summer.

While Strycker didn’t catch sight of the owl this time, he did see one on Long Island last winter. They appear on the south shore almost every year, although it’s unusual to see one in Central Park because they prefer beaches and open areas, which are closer to a normal tundra habitat.

As for the rare birds Strycker has seen in the area, he said he got to see a Western Tanager and an Ash Throated Flycatcher in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn this fall. These are birds from the western part of the country, which don’t visit the Empire State too often.

Vagrant birds, which occur in areas outside their typical range, can appear in the area, a byproduct of a wrong turn during a long migration. So, what happens to birds during a snowstorm, I wondered.

For the snowy owl, if he were still here, the precipitation probably wouldn’t have been much of a problem, as his name suggests.

“Flying through falling snowflakes isn’t as much of an issue as flying in high winds, which do, occasionally, literally blow birds off course,” Strycker wrote.

During the storm, many bird species will tuck themselves in a protected spot, like in a dense tree to ride out the flakes.

Noah Strycker with a northern saw-whet owl

“This is a good time to watch your hedges and evergreen trees, which provide nice cover in the winter,” Strycker suggested.

Strycker said people could do seed eating birds — like sparrows, finches, cardinals, doves, chickadees, and jays — a favor by restocking a feeder before a snowstorm.

“They will all come to bird feeders for sunflower seeds and suet,” he said.

Snowy owls, on the other hand, don’t need handouts or feeders. They find their food, typically small mammals, by using their keen senses of sight and hearing. Shaped like a disc, an owl’s face concentrates faint sounds of rustling under the snow, allowing it to find prey it can’t see.

Strycker has always wanted to find an owl footprint in the snow, which looks like a snow angel. The owl lands on the snowy landscape to find its prey and lifts off, leaving footprint evidence of its meal.

As for the effect of the snow on a bird’s survival, Strycker said most of the birds in the area manage through the colder months.

“Snowstorms have been occurring in New York for a very long time, so birds that spend the winter here have mostly adapted to surviving them,” Strycker wrote.