Check out City Birder Tours, and Green-Wood sponsored tours on their calendar pages here.
Celebrate your inner nerd with my new t-shirt design! Available on my Spreadshirt shop in multiple colors and products.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Sad News from Green-Wood

The noreaster that blew through New York City did more than damage trees.

In Prospect Park over 50 trees were destroyed. Nearby, at Green-Wood Cemetery, the devastation was just as bad. In addition to the trees that were uprooted, many more had limbs torn from the trunk. It is the worse damage I've seen since Hurricane Donna, when I was a child. Meteorologists hadn't forecast such a powerful storm. Marge refers to it as "Hurricane No-name".

Amazingly, Big Mama and Junior's nest seems to have survived, although it now leans a little bit to one side. And now for the bad news ...

A large limb fell into the Great Horned Owl nest and Marge found the remains of an owl egg on the ground beneath the tree. We searched the trees in the general vicinity for the pair to make sure they survived. Eventually, we found both the male and the female. I'm probably just projecting, but they seemed sad. It's probably too late in the season for them to attempt another brood. Maybe next year.

1 comment:

yojimbot said...

Sad news indeed...amazing that you found the egg. At least this brings some closure. This same type of event happened on the Great Hill, wiping out swaths of old trees. There has definitely been some strange weather going down lately. We must trust that Nature has its patterns and its reasons for doing what it does.

Regards,

J