Posted by Alex on July 03, 2003 at 21:28:46:
Today I payed a visit with my family for an evening picnic with my family on the 79th Street Beach. It had a few birds: Laughing Gull, Royal Tern, Least Tern, Pelican, Frigatebird, and Rock, Mourning and Collard Doves. Before we reached the actual beach, we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall pizza parlor for dinner. I took a moment to take some nice pictures of two adult kingbirds with their 2 babys. This was right near a small apartment and I did'nt notice a women sitting on some steps reading. She asked me what types of birds they were and I told her they were Gray Kingbirds. Than she asked if I wanted to see some "seagulls"
nesting on the roof of the 4 apartment, 2 story building. I came back with my parents permmision and I walked up behind her up a fire escape. Once I poked my head up I saw they were not "seagulls" at all. There were 2 baby Least Terns and an adult tern sitting near eachother on a gravel top roof. The babys were not capable of flight yet and were brownish and fuzzy.
Eventually another tern came over with some fish to share with the family.After he left I told herabout the endangered species nesting on her roof. She became very interested and said she would look up on this. I told her not to bother them as they can become very spooked, very easily and may abandone there kids. They planned to celebrate 4th of July on the roof, and now they are not going to be going on the roof at all until the birds have left for good. She said they nest there annually and some of the apartment members get upset by the noise they make at night. Since she is in charge of the apartment, she will make sure they are not disturbed.
Also I checked out the North Bay Village Parrot Roost, which I found out 5 species of parrot roost there as Mr. Siegel told me. I saw 10+ Chestnut Fronted Macaws, and a nice sized Monk Parakeet nest on the western-most part of the community. Thanks to Mr. Seigel for telling me about the parrots there.