Brooklyn's Rat-Patrol Raptors

Back on one of those warm days in December I was jogging through Prospect Park. Along an empty lane down near the lake I saw a big red-tailed hawk on the ground ahead of me. He was a bright blur of brown and white feathers, and then suddenly he was aloft and rising swiftly across my path, into the trees.

He carried in his talons a big rat, its long tail swinging loose. This was one happy hawk, like a guy hustling down 5th Ave. with a sausage calzone.

Red-tailed hawks would seem more at home in treelines along cow pastures upstate or in rural New Jersey, making life difficult for squirrels. But here was one in one of the largest parks in Brooklyn performing a public service: raticide. What a fine bird.

Ever since its creation in 1866 there have been raptors?hawks, falcons, owls and the odd eagle?in Prospect Park. "Raptor" is Latin for "plunderer," and is a generic term for birds of prey. Often the birds are simply hanging out during their seasonal southern migrations. Most head back north or west in spring to breed. Red-tails, however, have nested in the area. The last nesting pair in the park left their residence in 1997. Since then there has been a nesting pair in Green-Wood Cemetery. Those adults and their fledglings cruise Prospect Park, snatching up rats, chipmunks and squirrels. But red-tails are pretty common in the Northeast in general and individuals often visit the park on miles-long forays.

"It's not unreasonable to say that red-tailed hawks and other raptors are the unknown rat control of Prospect Park," says David Diaz, a woodland, wildlife and soil specialist for the Park, and the resident bird naturalist. "In peak times, there are probably two red-tailed hawks in the park on any given day, probably more. And a red easily eats a rat a day."

Joining the rat feast are Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks?smaller raptors that closely resemble each other with their whitish-gray bodies striped with dark brown or black across the undersides of their wings and tails. (Both birds are also "species of special concern" in New York state, i.e., there is a risk of possible, serious population declines due to loss of habitat.) More partial to pigeons and woodland birds, these two hawks scarf up rats too. Diaz estimates that there is probably one or more individuals of this pair in the park on any given day, though their peak times are fall and winter. Altogether, through a daily effort, the red-tails, Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks are killing and eating about 1200 rats in Prospect Park per year.

That's a fine pile of rats, and it's a free service. Consider how much of your city tax dollars are spent on rodenticide and its distribution in the subway system and in green areas; probably not a lot compared to, say, pothole repair, but a rat killed for free is an extra couple of donuts for you. And here we have a team of raptors, some in decline due to real estate development in the hinterlands, that show up in Brooklyn and frequently swoop down on Rattus.

Rat populations in Prospect Park, and in any other park in the city, fluctuate radically depending on human behavior. On any fine summer day in the park, particularly after Memorial Day, Puerto Rican Day and Fourth of July celebrations, the local rats enjoy a smorgasbord of refuse in the overflowing trash cans and stuff scattered on the ground. Thus, through the warm months, rat populations spike and can stay high into the fall. Local-area hawks gobble what they can, and then other hawks arrive on their autumnal migrations and now "they're eating rats through the winter, no question," Diaz says.

Red-tails are probably the easiest raptors to spot in the park because they perch in the open, and they take the lion's share of rats. These hawks are thick, muscly birds covered in chocolate-brown and white feathers on their wings and torsos, but their color phases can vary greatly, from lots of white to lots of brown. Their tail feathers are usually a rusty red, tipped with black. They hunt by watching from their perch and making a sudden dive, by soaring high and scanning the ground or by cruising low and slow, juking and hiding behind trees before making a lightning-fast strike.

According to the new Raptors of the World, the red-tail's cry is "a long-drawn descending scream, sheeeeeee," two to three seconds long. Not a good sound, if you're a rat.