WildEyed: The Pant of the “Global Hawk”

 

A glance at this red-tailed hawk brings to mind its famed cry, which Cornell University notes is dubbed into the beaks of hawks and eagles in movies and television shows ad infinitum. In reality you’re seeing a hawk pant.

 

 

The iconic Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is home to a pair of hawks whose nest is in the Indian Ocean, so to speak. But that exposure, perhaps worsened by glaringly reflective metal, drove this bird down below the shade of the tree canopy. My kayaking and biking buddy, Richard Furlong of LaGuardia Community College’s ESL program, found himself ten feet below this hawk while in the park for the Tour de Queens and took these shots (click to enlarge).  

 

 

Another friend, Emmanuel Fuentebella, captured the other hawk in these photos as he (I believe, since it looked smaller) watched the crazily busy skateboarding circle at the base of the Unisphere.

 

 

 

I was shocked at the idea of a hawk scooting under leaf cover to close to the ground, even though a friendly Queens knitter, Helen, told me of a red-tailed hawk living at a local courthouse that was equally unphased by human company. It’s still commonly believed that red-tailed hawks will soar to cool down, with temperatures dropping with rising altitudes. Skepticism is building, as shade seeking is far more apparent. Also, soaring is an effective territorial and mating display, explaining many hours spent aloft while not hunting.

 

 

Other bloggers (http://www.fordham.edu/politicalsci/profs/fleisher/NYC_hawks.html, http://adevolution.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/update-animal-profile-red-tailed-hawks-of-flushing-meadows/) have noted that the Unisphere hawks are very attentive to their nests, giving rise to hopes for a new generation. I worry that the heat, which is LOUDLY breaking in a storm as I type, might endanger eggs or hatchlings.

 

Ferruginous hawks, a more heat-adapted North American desert species, suffers markedly higher infant mortality rates as temperatures rise. Though nests seem to be located regardless of shading, adults and hatchlings alike seek shade. Strangely, the first motivation for fledglings to leave the nest appears to be to find shade (not to mothers everywhere – send junior packing by turning off the air conditioner). Another surprising aspect of ferruginous hawks’ is that their remarkably large gapes might be an adaptation to pants more effectively in addition to consuming large prey.

 

As a small side note, hawks’ young were found to die from heat stress in greater numbers when ill fed. I wonder if there’s a compounding problem here, with potential prey hunkering down, even under ground, to remain cool while riding out heat waves.

 

Let’s hope for the best, and watch and learn.

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Tour de (Heat Island) Queens

 

 

When Transportation Alternative’s absolutely wonderful Tour de Queens (enjoy the Street Films video above) rolled into Maspeth on Sunday under the blaze of a record-setting June heat wave, we were subjected to a brutal lesson in urban planning and natural history.

 

The Newtown Creek is infamous for being home to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, and to heavy metals and other industrial pollutants. Increasingly, lay greens are becoming aware of the combined sewer overflows that plague the waterway with pathogens after rainstorms. What’s less known is that, apart from airport landing strips, you won’t find hotter a hotter place in New York City than the banks of the Newtown Creek. The area’s sewage and swelter share the same origin: a concrete and asphalt “hardscape” instead of a landscape. In the absence of trees, grass, and other plants, water rolls off the impermeable surfaces and floods the sewage system while sunlight beats down on unshaded streets that reradiate heat.

 

NASA used Landsat to map our “urban heat island,” where temperatures are over seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter than surrounding region. Maspeth was of particular interest to the NASA researchers because it was both particularly afflicted and a prime candidate for mitigation, with low, flat-topped, strong buildings that could bear the weight of green roofs.

 

 

 

The natural history element I alluded to above is of greater concern to bikers than NASA: Oh, the hills! Maspeth sits on the western end of the Harbor Hill Moraine (as you can see in the U.S. Geological Survey map below) that was plowed up by glaciers over 10,000 years ago.

 

 

 

The image below is Helen Ho’s photograph of the Queens Museum’s celebrated New York City panaroma model, with pink tape showing our route over the hills and through the mini-torrid zone. 

 

 

 

I wrote for the Village Voice about the Urban Heat Island phenomenon (including diet, lifestyle, and city planning tips to survive it) and various animal heat adaptations last year. One part that didn’t get published is the fascinating possibility that migrating birds are leaving New York City plumper than they arrived because they needn’t burn as many calories to stay warm at night. I spent a morning in the woods of Bronx Park observing Chad Seewagen, a Wildlife Conservation Society ornithologist, investigating this hunch. My friends Robin Lloyd and David Berreby later wrote up items about Chad and his work for Live Science and the New Yorker, respectively.

 

 

 

These days, however, most species are working hard to shed heat. Humans are particularly lucky in that we sweat copiously, a gift from our tropical heritage that remains with people of all ancestries. Bear in mind, however, that parents can undo in their own kids’ resilience by raising them with air conditioning; sweat glands that aren’t activated in infancy remain dormant for life. Dogs are among the species that have wet noses, long tongues, and very wrinkled nasal passages to allow for heat exchanges with the air.

 

My favorite evolutionary solution is the carotid rete, a fine web where arteries dump heat into veins and the upper respiratory system so that blood rising to the brain is significantly cooler than the rest of the body. Gazelles have an extraordinarily well-developed carotid rete, but humans are much less impressive in that regard. It’s usually brain temperature that dictates when an animal must stop or pass out, so you can imagine how useful such a tool is for hunters and especially fleeing prey.

 

And so I might have been the only volunteer marshal ready to scream, “A carotid rete! My kingdom for a carotid rete!”

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