Monthly Archives: April 2016

17 Hawks (Continued!)

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Last week in this space we mentioned how we had recently counted 17 hawks on a drive from Avon to Dansville. That led us into talking about the hawks commonly found in our area, specifically the four “class-by-themselves” birds – the osprey, the turkey vulture, the bald eagle, and the northern harrier.

*The rest of the raptors (or hawks) in our area fall into three large groups: falcons, accipiters, and buteos.

*FALCONS generally have long tails and long pointed wings. They flap those wings frequently and rapidly, and they’re pretty much the speed kings of the bird world, especially when diving (“stooping”) onto prey.

*Drive around for an hour or so and you’ll see several falcons, though you might not notice. The AMERICAN KESTREL (“sparrow hawk”) is a pigeon-sized bird, often perched on utility lines mixed in with (and unnoticed among) mourning doves. It’s been described as a linebacker, with shoulders very broad in proportion to its head. Unsurprisingly it takes small prey… sometimes small birds, but mostly insects and rodents.

*Another falcon we see occasionally is the crow-sized PERGERINE (“duck hawk”). I once met one outside Corning library, where it had just come to earth on a green patch. Another flew right past me at shoulder height as we both traveled a dirt road in Finger Lakes National Forest. These birds like to make their nests in cliffs. City skyscrapers often provide them with homes nowadays, and if you scout around on the internet you can find nest-cams showing their family life as it unfolds.

*BUTEOS are a group with generally broad wings and short rounded tails. In flight they’ll often take a flap and glide, take a flap and glide, take a flap and glide. The RED-TAILED HAWK is perhaps the easiest to identify. It runs about two foot from nose to tail, and the upper side of the adult’s tail is, in fact, red. If the sun shines through, you can even see it from the underside.

*The crow-sized BROAD-WINGED HAWK is very common, with a conspicuously banded tail. The RED-SHOULDERED HAWK is a bit bigger, also with a banded tail but the tail’s a little longer. It does indeed have reddish “shoulders” on its wings, but they’re not always easy to spot.

*ACCIPITERS as a group have long tails and rounded wings. Their flight pattern is often to take two or three flaps and then coast, and they’re often found in woods, where those long tails lend them maneuverability through the branches. The SHARP-SHINNED HAWK runs either side of a foot in length, while the COOPER’S HAWK is not quite half again as large. On the underside both birds have tail banding, and also nice horizontal banding or streaking on the breast.

*Gone, we hope, are the bad old days of hawk pie, annual hawk slaughters along the migration routes, and hawks routinely killed around farmyards. Yes, occasionally hawks do make incursions onto hen runs, and once in a while a sharpshin, a Cooper’s or a kestrel slams down among songbirds at the feeder. (There’s no such thing as a “chicken hawk,” except that ANY hawk was considered a dire threat in days gone by.) But they take far, far more in insects, rodents, and carrion. All in all, the hawks are on our side.

17 Hawks — Part I

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Last month, as we drove along 390 from Avon to Dansville, we counted 17 hawks. By the time we got to Cohocton, we had four more.

*This was that starving time when spring had not yet truly stirred. The hawks were desperate by then, with prey so scarce. Leaves were at their thinnest, and when combined with that desperation it made the hawks plenty in number and easy to spot.

*How many types of hawks (or raptors) do we have on a regular basis? More than most of us would think.

*There are four species that each form a “class” of its own, beginning with the BALD EAGLE, far and away our biggest “hawk.” The size, along with the distinctive white head and tail, make them hard to miss and easy to identify. They tend to hang near water, as they really go for fish – I once saw a pair of them fishing on the icy flats of the Chemung River, just east of Corning. They nest, among other places, in Bath, appearing near Lake Salubria, the Conhocton River, and Mossy Bank. The Chemung, Conhocton, and Canisteo Rivers have all become growth areas for them. I’ve also seen them near Cohocton, and they’re famously found at Hemlock Lake, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, and near Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania.

*The there’s the OSPREY – smaller than the eagle, but big enough to be confused with it. The fact that osprey are also fish fans only adds to the confusion, as they’re often found together, or a least in similar spots. Old-timers even called them fish hawks.

*A pair of eagles and a pair of osprey nested within sight of each other in Bath for years. While the eagle does a lot of scavenging, the osprey circles high, spots a fish, and then dives like a rocket coming in. It disappears for a few seconds and then suddenly flies – there’s no other way to describe it – directly up from underwater. It’s one of the great wildlife sights in our area.

*Both of these great birds have made an incredible comeback within easy memory. Both were crashing toward extinction thanks to overuse of DDT, which is a persistent broad-spectrum pesticide — it stays in the environment, and it kills everything. Thanks to runoff it concentrated in fish, and then in the bodies of eagles and osprey, thinning out the eggshells until they nearly all broke before hatching. Limiting DDT, along with release and relocation, has created a population boom. Steuben County has more eagles now than it did 150 years ago.

*The TURKEY VULTURE is also a huge bird, and the only vulture we have. Like the eagle it has long broad wings. Like the eagle and the osprey it often soars, holding its great wings steady with only occasional flaps. All three birds are avatars of our area’s soaring and gliding heritage. We have LOTS of vultures! I counted 36 from the parking lot at Bath’s Dormann Library a few weeks ago, all circling and cycling upward on rising air.

*Vultures are scavengers, plain and simple… part of nature’s clean-up crew. Scanning from their great heights they spot road kill or other carrion and slide off toward it, riding the winds on their great wings.

*All of these are very big birds, but the NORTHERN HARRIER, or marsh hawk, is a “normal-sized” hawk that’s also in a class by itself. It has a long tail, wide wings, and a white rump, making it fairly easy to spot. It’s not unusual to see a harrier gliding slowly along, just above the tall grass in fields or by roadsides, checking out prey from up close and personal. Curiously all four of these “class by itself” hawks share one habit. All of them will hover – manipulating their wings on the air currents to hang in one place.

*COMING SOON – buteos, falcons, and accipiters!

A Stroll in Hornell

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Once upon a time, it was just an inconsequential hamlet in Hornellsville. Then the Erie Railroad came through, and by 1851 Erie had located its main repair shops in the isolated settlement. The little hamlet became a much bigger place, and then an incorporated village, and then the City of Hornellsville, finally changed a few years later to our modern City of Hornell.

*This was a pretty prosperous place, thanks to the railroad. Shade trees lining the streets inspired the nickname “Maple City.” An electric trolley line ran around and about in the city, and even dipped into a “subway” under Main Street, and connected with Canisteo.

*The young city had monumental churches, a Catholic hospital, a Catholic orphanage, an armory, an impressive school system, multiple bands, and a very busy Y.M.C.A. Manufacturers made silk, and even “Ferris wheels.” Maude Adams, John L. Sullivan, Tom Thumb, and even Oscar Wilde trod the boards at Shattuck Opera House. (No clue, unfortunately, what Oscar thought about Hornell.) Aviation pioneer Charlie Day went to Hornell High School. Former flying star Blanche Stuart Scott ended her broadcasting days on Hornell radio, and future TV star Bob Crane started his.

*For many years Hornell held its own annual fair to rival the one in Bath. The fairground made a convenient landing place in 1916 when Ruth Law flew in non-stop from Chicago in an open biplane, setting the American distance record and the world women’s distance record. Cal Rodgers stopped in Hornell on America’s first coast-to-coast flight (which took three months).

*U.S.S. Hornell, a tug in the “Erie Navy,” once plied waters of the Port of New York. For many years Hornell was home to minor-league baseball – future all-stars Don Zimmer and Charlie Neal both played for Hornell in 1950.

*The 1935 flood shattered the city. New Deal flood control programs insured that 1972 wasn’t as bad, but three men surveying damage were killed in a helicopter crash. The flood also spelled doom for what was then the Erie Lackawanna Railroad… which meant declining population and prosperity in Hornell.

*Things have come back since then – not to the glory days of the Erie, but then railroads just aren’t what they used to be. Alstom is busy manufacturing and assembling traction engines, railway cars, and passenger locomotives. The Hornell Erie Depot Museum is a “must visit” for railfans. The city’s peak population was 16,300 in 1930 (also pretty much the peak of railroads), and 8,600 in the latest census.

*It’s gratifying to stroll around the city center, where the streets and the sidewalks are wide enough to give you a fine feeling of openness. I wander in and out of antique shops (rooting out old comic books) and little eateries, and if I really want to know the time, I check the town clock.

*A few steps away from the city center the 1916 post office, no longer in use, is an imposing edifice from the age of imperialism. It was created under the watchful eye of Steuben County native James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. A little farther down Seneca Street is the still-active 1894 armory. Off a little on Genesee Street is Hornell Public Library, in its lovely 1911 Carnegie Building.

*Hornell has a downtown walk-in movie theater… a daily newspaper (our sister publication, the Evening Tribune)… a Catholic school (St. Ann’s Academy)… Steuben County’s only formal Jewish congregation (Temple Beth-El)… a much-loved St. Patrick’s Day parade… and the longest-serving mayor (Shawn Hogan) in New York history. (His father was mayor too.) Hornell is well worth a stop and a stroll. I like it there. Maybe you would too.

Where to Eat When You’re on the Road

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When you’re on the road, the genius of the fast-food chain is that you know what you’ll be getting. But sometimes what they’re serving is not what you want. We get around New York a fair amount, so while we were traveling (to a Rhode Island funeral) on Easter Sunday we talked about writing up some of the places we’ve found over the years.

*”Restaurant reviews” are tricky. You wind up leaving out many terrific places, just because you can’t try them all. Chefs and owners change, which changes the whole experience. So a piece like this comes with no promises our guarantees… just a report of some of our own experiences between the Hudson and the Genesee. So leaving Steuben and Chemung Counties behind, let’s start with a stop at

*The Sunrise in Dansville. I eat here fairly frequently, and so do a whale of a lot of local folks. It’s a friendly place with good meals from a good menu. I’ve enjoyed the hash, the club sandwiches, the spaghetti, the egg-and-olive sandwiches. EVERYBODY enjoys the chocolate-peanut butter pies! The library’s right next door.

*Peppermints Family Restaurant, on West Henrietta Road in Henrietta. Always a friendly welcome. If a young man starting out in life were to ask my advice for getting on in the world I’d say, try the clam chowder. Try the Clam Chowder. TRY THE CLAM CHOWDER!

*Charbroil Family Restaurant, in Brighton. We discovered this utterly by accident, driving by when we needed a meal. Now we go out of our way to get there. It’s always crowded with local folks, but not so much that you stand around waiting. We’ve had breakfast, lunch, and dinner there, each more than once.

*For a light lunch and a light heart, eat at Pinwheel Market and Cafe by Milly’s Pantry in Penn Yan. Milly’s Pantry has a simple, straightforward goal – “so children won’t go hungry.” Patronizing the cafe supports the goal, and the food is always good.

*The Villager is our favorite spot in Canandaigua. We Rhode Islanders consider good Italian food a birthright. The Villager amply qualifies.

*Rhode Islanders also set a high store on fish and chips. And we love Doug’s Fish Fry in Skaneateles, where every day is Friday night, pre-Vatican II. Place your order at the counter, and wind up with more than you can comfortably eat.

*If you’re headed to Albany or beyond on I-88, the Duanesburg Diner can be a decent stop at exit 24. It’s an original manufactured diner, much added-onto.

*If you’re headed to New England via Newburgh Bridge, check out Stewart Airport Diner on Route 17K. We’ve had breakfast, lunch, and dinner there, and always done well. Despite the name (and the abundance of chrome), I don’t believe it’s a manufactured diner.

*But Quickway Diner IS an enlarged manufactured diner, down by the other end of 17K near Wurtsboro and Route 17. Back in 2011 they won a local consumer poll for best coffee, best breakfast, best soup, and best diner.

*I haven’t given in yet, but I’m sometimes consumed with temptation to hop in the car and drive three hours for lunch at the Miss Monticello (in Monticello) – also an original diner much enlarged. The motzaball soup is good, the hot pastrami on rye is GREAT – just about worth the trip by itself. You can gaze out the window and imagine you’re watching the hordes pass by on their way to Woodstock, just down the road. By the way, some years ago my wife and our sons were stranded at Miss Monticello for an afternoon because of an automotive breakdown. The folks there couldn’t have been nicer. Fast food chains are very useful. But exploring a little, and taking a risk, can serve up delicious rewards.