Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Water Street Peregrines

Falco peregrinusFor the last couple of months, I’ve periodically seen a single Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) hanging around the scrape at 55 Water Street. This is an established nesting site, complete with nest cams (but the website hasn’t been updated since 2011). Most of the time I’ve looking (optically enhanced, you can bet) from the other side of the East River, so all I could tell was that, yeah, there was a Peregrine there. Alerted by a friend, I went over the water yesterday to take a closer look. Falco peregrinusThe angle of view isn’t great because you’re practically underneath the fourteen-story-high scrape, and the Downtown Heliport is behind you, roaring with up to nine choppers at one point, spewing foul fuel-stench into the air. (What an abomination that place is!) But there were definitely two birds. And they were in and out of the scrape and flying hither and yon. You can see a metal band on this bird’s leg. In the image below, you can just barely make out a green band on the other leg. Both bands are visible on the airborne bird at top.Falco peregrinusSame building, but around the corner on the far end of the southern face. The scrape is east-facing, more or less: the rising sun can help to warm up the brooding bird and the eggs on the cold spring mornings.Falcon giftAnd here’s a dead bird, probably a pigeon. I didn’t see the delivery, but males will bring prey to the female during courtship.

So, no brooding as yet, but things are proceeding apace, like they did along the Palisades before ever a human wandered here.

mthew

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4 responses to “Water Street Peregrines”

  1. Crystal

    I’m not from NYC and I wonder what a scrape is? Uninhabited skyscrape?

    Reply
    1. mthew

      A scrape is a technical term for a falcon nest. (Sorry, I usually try to keep the jargon to a minimum.) Peregrines don’t build twiggy conglomerations like many song birds, in fact, they use little more than a shallow depression. Traditionally, they were birds of cliff sides: all they needed was a horizontal surface, with some overhead for protection, for a nest space. They find such circumstances in cities on bridges and buildings; there are more than a dozen scrapes in NYC. 55 Water St. is a on the East River edge of Lower Manhattan, and very much full of people.

      Reply
      1. Crystal

        Thanks for the explanation. your photos are great! Keep a-going!

  2. Raptor Alignment | Backyard and Beyond

    […] through the new Osprey nesting platform at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s ghost of Pier 4 is the 55 Water Street Peregrine scrape across the East River. It’s too late for Ospreys to nest here this season, but the falcons […]

    Reply

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