A Wonderful Life

I don't know if you've been watching this story on the news but several weeks ago, the building manager of 927 Fifth Avenue in New York City had the nest of a mated pair of Red-Tailed Hawks torn down from his building. These marvelous birds, named Pale Male and Lola, have been living at this posh Manhattan location for over a decade and had raised over 20 children. They were famous celebreties, like apartment neighbor Mary Tylor Moore and Woody Allen across the street.

Someone (who has never been named) complained about the bits of debris and pidgeon carcases that occasionally fell from the nest and, the building manager, hoping to avoid any problems with the rent payer, tore the nest down and removed the pidgeon spikes, which would prevent the nest from being rebuilt. Of course, without the pidgeon spikes, the pidgeons would return to roost on the ledge eventually. I suppose he thought by then the Hawks would have moved somewhere else and become someone else's problem.

Well, he had problems of his own. There was a tremendous outcry. Over the weeks as Pale Male and Lola made futile attempts to rebuild their home, hawk watchers and nature lovers lobyed to have the nesting site restored. The Audubon Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The New York Times and thousands of vigil sitters converged on the cause of returning Pale Male to his home.

As a resident of the less urbanized Pittsburgh area, hawks are a common site. Nature isn't so far removed as the suburbs have deer in the yards, hawks in the sky, turkey in city parks and we even had a bear come through the area a few years back. I can only imagine the horror of a city dweller, encircled by glass and concrete, suddenly waking to find that the one piece of nature in his neighborhood was torn out overnight.

Our own urban pride is a nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons atop the Gulf Building downtown. (http://www.paconserve.org/pittfalcons/gulfvideo.htm) Unfortunately, their nest is not visible from the office windows where I work but I see them from time to time diving past the windows. A distinctive silouette caught for a moment out of the corner of the eye. I would be outraged if some pinhead decided to tear down their nesting box. I feel pangs when the Gulf Building decides to remove the webcam TV from their street-level window, even though they do so when the nest is empty and there's nothing to see.

Christmas Eve brought the best news. The spike were going back up and, if Pale Male and Lola hadn't already decided to move somewhere else, a new nesting platform would be waiting for them to move back to their home.

And it's our home, too. We need this connection to the rest of the world, to remind us that we are not the world's masters but its caretakers.

I was asked, "How would you feel having dead pidgeons falling on your doorstep?"

"Every time a pidgeon dies, an red-tail gets his wings."