The gap under the cradle: response to my request

[unable to upload photos again today]

On Saturday, May 31, I posted a letter from John Blakeman responding to my question about the gap under the "cradle " at the Fifth Avenue Red-tail nest. As I promised in my posting, I forwarded the correspondence to Glenn Phillips, executive director of NYC Audubon, and wrote in the subject line: Can we do this simple thing? I prefaced the forwarded material with a note:

Glenn, The issue of the gap under the cradle keeps coming up, again and again and again. Now that you have the opportunity, [ to retrieve the eggs] why not do what Blakeman recommends in his note below [posted here on Saturday]. It certainly is cheap, and it fulfills the Hippocratic injunction Primum non nocere. Marie

Today he responded:

Red-Tail Hawks, as you know, nest on all sorts of structures, including bare fire escapes. Our expert panel discarded that issue as unlikely to be a contributing factor. Although the materials suggested may indeed be inexpensive, the permits, review by an architect, and the scaffolding (any modification to the cradle would require an inspector and a separate contract with the scaffolding company) would not be. Given that we’re still working to get the permits and agreement from the scaffolding company just to collect the eggs…I’m not sure it’s really simple. I’m afraid, much as it pains me to admit it, that we may not be able to expect further offspring from this pair of red-tails.

Glenn Phillips

Executive Director New York City Audubon

71 West 23rd Street, Room 1523

New York, NY 10010 Phone:

(212) 691-7483 Fax: (212) 924-3870

gphillips@nycaudubon.org

www.nycaudubon.org