McGolrick Bird Club Issue 006
June 3rd Bird Walk
On a windy, cloudy Saturday morning, the Bird Club found fewer species in McGolrick Park than usual. But there was no shortage of the characteristic good vibes, nor moments of punk-zen-bird awe for the everyday sacred that birdwatching guarantees.
To see the bird species most recently noticed in McGolrick Park, check the main column here.
Highlights:
A Mourning Dove continues to nest, hidden in plain sight, across from the WWI angel.
A Northern Cardinal sang one of its lazer beam songs.
We learned, via bird clubber Millie, that another typical cardinal call — a loud, metallic chip — is made to warn off territory intruders and to call others’ attention to nearby predators.
A Downy Woodpecker landed just above our crew and belted out its descending squeak toy call
The monkey sounds of a Northern Flicker eventually led us to not one, but two of these astounding woodpeckers: a mating pair that actually—how do we put this—got it on in full view.
This was a jubilant moment, this it couple sighting, because up until then our bird walk was peppered with snippets of…
The Saga of McGolrick Park’s Northern Flickers
The story begins in early April when a Northern Flicker was first noticed calling from and flying around, McGolrick’s canopy. It’s always exciting to notice a Northern Flicker. Their monkey call of course rules, but also:
They’re beautiful.
The Yayoi Kusama approved front
The elegant black necklace
The red/gray/browns noggin
The mustachioed males (as seen above)
The tastefully striped gray-brown cardigan back
And what’s that pop of yellow, down tail side?
Sweet bird gods! Flickers are named for the flashes of color their under feathers offer lucky onlookers. Northern Flickers of the eastern US are yellow. Out west, they’re pink (and the males’ mustaches, red):
Are you in love yet?
Our love was compounded on May 7th, a crazy Sunday, when bird clubbers Jess, Monise, and your correspondent saw a pair of flickers humping.
Photo taken in McGolrick Park!
Mating flickers. This was exciting to witness. It suggested that our McGolrick Park, where the species was being regularly noticed, might become home to these birds.
An improbably beautiful, native-to-the-Americas woodpecker of declining numbers, thriving above our heads? This was special. And our hearts flickered with joy when — if you’ll excuse the iPhone-zoomed photo — we saw the male flicker hurling debris from a nesting cavity. A sign of breeding to come:
What you might have noticed on your strolls through McGolrick, was a tree knot near Mr. Monitor inexplicably spewing wood shavings, until a flicker — male or female; duty shared — would emerge to keep watch.
European Starlings
As it turns out, that watchfulness was warranted. Because three days later, European Starlings had overtaken the flickers’ nesting cavity. More bad iPhone photos:
Who and what are European Starlings? To start, they’re the most common bird of McGolrick Park.
Sleek, bold, sometimes speckled and iridescent, smart, noisy muse of Mozart, yellow-beaked. You can see them all over McGolrick: perching, near or in most of the trees’ knots, flying about, and pecking at grass.
European Starlings, as their name suggests, are not native to the Americas. They’re an invasive species that was brought to the US in 1890 — to New York City, actually — in a successful yet ultimately disastrous move by Eugene Schieffelin and his homies, naturalists who either wanted to spread the old world’s fauna or reduce the number of “insect pests” i.e. caterpillars. Hank Green does a great job with that story here.
The tl;dr: Starlings, designed for an old world ecosystem, found a new world that
they were uniquely well-suited to overrun. And as this Americas Starling range map shows, they did just that:
This has not been good for our continent. Starlings destroy crops and they push out native species. Especially Eastern Bluebirds, who might otherwise visit McGolrick Park. But double especially: Northern Flickers, whose numbers are in decline in large part due to the European Starling conquest.
To see this happen at the micro-level, in McGolrick Park, was depressing, to say the least. Northern Flickers, while able to battle starlings in the air, apparently are not equipped to retain the holes that starlings usurp, or even enter with a flicker inside. These scenarios drive the flickers out, broodless.
The Saga Continues: Flicker Tang… Flicker Tang
But the saga continues! On Sunday, June 4th, the mating pair of Northern Flickers were spotted in a second tree hole, again throwing out debris. The Bird Club was on scene with a proper camera this time:
Female tossing debris.
Female keeping watch.
Nearby lighter is a weirdly good omen.
Female squawking at…
A starling! The female gives chase!
She attacks and scares off two starlings! (Pardon the blur.)
The flickers take shifts guarding the hole. Here’s them trading places!
The male keeps watch in front of… Wait, are the Northern Flickers, who face the threat of displacement, trying to nest in front of McGolrick Park’s similarly threatened Church Co-op?!
As of Tuesday, June 6th: Yes.
On Birds and Buildings
There are a few ways to go with the story at this point. One is to just say: FUCK STARLINGS. While that’s a warranted reaction, anthropomorphizing is always tricky. Starlings don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just birds. Starlings gonna Starling.
But I get that reaction. Because although humans do know what they’re doing, it can feel like we live in a European Starling world. A world where brute power, dominance games, and aggression win the day. Where short-term interests buttressed by numerical power appear predestined. Where pro-change determinists who don’t even benefit personally from the new, will inevitably shout things like*:
They might disrupt the fabric of their environment, but starlings (and condos) are beautiful too!
And: I thought we had a bird numbers (housing) crisis! Don’t you want more birds, not fewer?
And: Such interloping starlings (developers) are go-getters! They’ve worked hard and deserve the territory they’re after!
And: Hey, in the tale of Lenapehoking, indigenous Brooklyn, the current residents of Greenpoint are here through a violent legacy of displacement—anyone not Native American is the starling… man!
That last one actually stings. But however stung, confounded, or annoyed protectors of the past are, pro-change determinists—the starlings and their allies—deserve not ire, but pity. Like Starlings who had no choice but to fight for survival where they found themselves, the pro-dominant are usually the most fragile among us—their antagonism is nothing more than a reflex formed to protect against foreign territories of feeling on which they don’t know yet how to live.
Folks embrace forces of power because they feel small, and want the opposite.
So let’s work around that.
“What Can I Do to Help?” / Conclusion
We defenders of Northern Flickers, and other McGolrick Park advocates, see the unquantifiable value of the sacred and fear the consequences of subtle but pernicious environmental change. We face uphill battles. We’re outnumbered, and our foes are seemingly bred for highly competitive survival.
As for its part in the flicker fight, the Bird Club is paying attention and… birdwatching: just like we always do. Our photos and eBird data will track the Northern Flicker Saga, however, it plays out, and hopefully contribute to future science**. We’re also emailing Audubon, contacting ornithologists, and heading down Google search rabbit holes that start with starling-proof flicker nest boxes*** and end with how do I kill 100 starlings without upsetting parkgoers? (That’s just a joke — we’re not going to kill any birds.)†
If the world doesn’t feel quite right if human error—directly or indirectly—seems determined to disrupt an ecosystem: take action. Watch, listen, write, or just put your body in front of a hole. This is how individuals change things at the micro and macro levels.
Here’s what you can do:
Go watch the flickers
Their current tree is a London plane, across the street from the Church Co-op on Russell. As of this writing, it’s marked by a sign.
Stay a comfortable distance away, but if you see starlings exploring the lowest tree cavities, try to scare them off. Be sure to not scare the flickers.
Write NYC Audubon and request help. Here’s a template and recipients to copy/paste:
Send to:
info@nycaudubon.org, dpartridge@nycaudubon.org, kparkins@nycaudubon.org, etobon@nycaudubon.org, kchen@nycaudubon.org, twinston@nycaudubon.org, selbin@nycaudubon.org, rrivas@nycaudubon.org
CC: m@mcgbirdclub.com, friendsofmcgolrick@gmail.com
Hi NYC Audubon,
Please help us protect the mating Northern Flickers of McGolrick Park. As of writing, they’re repeatedly being displaced by European Starlings.
We need guidance, and probably resources of human power/time, to protect the flickers’ attempts to breed. Please help us.
Thank you,
<your name>
Follow @commonplace.nyc to get updates on Russell Street’s threatened Park Church. Show up to related events.
Follow @mcgolrickpark to learn more about local events and ways to get involved, including weekly bird walks
Palate Cleanse
If you’re looking for a guided way to get deeper into birding, check out the New York Times’ recent collab with eBird and Cornell!
Want to Shazam birdsong? Download the Merlin app (apple, android) and poke your way into its “Sound ID” feature.
See you on Saturday at 9 AM, at McGolrick’s Russell/Driggs entrance!
*If you think that such politicization of avian life is hyperbolic, read how Scrub Jays were described as egg stealing, anti-family values baby killers in where else fascist mini mall swamp Florida
**It has been suggested that flickers, in an adaptive response to starling aggression, are delaying their breeding seasons to mid-June, when nesting cavities are less prized. But this theory seems incompletely proven, and possibly confounded by climate change.
***Unfortunately, it seems likely that any starling-proof flicker nest boxes immediately on offer are scams. We will keep looking.
†For the record, because starlings are invasive, they’re unprotected by existing environmental laws. While killing starlings won’t help — Pandora’s box is already way too the fuck open — you could always chuck a stick or two at starlings you see harassing woodpecker holes. And don’t worry about protecting their babies from your bush-whacking children.
That’s it for this week!
Let’s get zen and be punk and go birding together—and see what other birds show up!
