The basic strategy–aside from being there to spook the hawk–is to make sure your little birds have an easy escape route.
Keep reading How to keep hawks from devouring your bird feeder friends
 For years I’ve heard about a Chinatown park where old men bring their exotic birds and this morning I finally went to find it. The Wah-Mei Bird Garden in Sara Delano Roosevelt Park, just south of Delancey, can draw 40-some old Chinese men, each carrying a singing bird in an ornate cage. Or that’s what I’ve heard. I only saw three bird guys. I arrived around 8, in time to see the first bird man take the flannel cloth off his cage. It must shield the bird from the city, though most of narrow Roosevelt Park itself is not much better. It’s got bridge traffic on two sides and it’s dark and unkempt with wavy pavement and a drugged-out man lurching around. The cages themselves are fantastically carved wood, bamboo and what looked like ivory. They hang them on a long line over a fence that encloses the official Wah-Mei Bird garden. You can hear the birds sing if you get close. Nearby, other elderly Chinese exercised with swords. The most friendly and happy bird The bird man schedule remains mysterious to me. I asked the men; they acted like they didn’t understand me. I asked around; workers and dog walkers said it’s every day around this time. (Later, I read on New York Daily Photo blog it’s much busier on weekends.) Any singing bird is welcome, but the most desired are male Wah Mei (Garrulax canorus) that know lots of songs. The men who pretended not to speak Keep reading Mah Wei: Tiny Chinatown Songbirds, but Not Every Day  Berkshire Bird Paradise, Grafton, NYBird Paradise is one of the country’s biggest bird sanctuaries. (It’s also one of the hardest to find, off Route 2 in NY, near the Massachusetts/Vermont border.) More than 2,000 birds (100 species) live here and lots of them are the big ones everyone wants to see: bald and golden eagles; many kinds of large hawks; exotic pheasants; former pet songbirds; barnyard refugees; black swans. You’ll walk through a long green house-esque tunnel of former pets, then out to the yard. Ducks, geese and swans swim in a pond while pheasants and chickens wander around. Twelve bald eagles hang out together in the back. At the right time of year, visitors can hide in a special blind to watch a disabled bald eagle matings pair, Ross and Marilyn, and their family. The chicks they raise fly off to the wild (though return for occassional visits).Director Peter Dubacher started rescuing birds here in 1975. Friendly supporters drop by with food, building supplies as well as money.When chicks aren’t around, the emus still the show. These giant gangly birds are very curious about their human visitors. About human height, they seem to want to dance with you from the other side of the chain link fence. They twist their necks around to get a closer view and beg for food. About 40% of the birds here couldn’t make it in the wild and so will live out their lives here. Where to See Neat Animals in the Keep reading Berkshire Bird Paradise: The Biggest Bird Sanctuary in New York |
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