New life high above the city

Nine falcon chicks recently hatched in three separate locations high above New York City.
Four were born inside a World War II gun turret 215-feet up on the Rockaway tower of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. The birds were named Rocky, Floyd, Marine and Breezy in honor of their locale.
Three boys were born atop the Bronx tower at the Throgs Neck Bridge and named Locust, Edgewater and Bayside by Throgs Neck employees in honor of the Bronx and Queens communities near that bridge, said General Manager Ed Wallace.
“It doesn’t cost the Authority anything to have the falcons nest here,” said Throgs Neck Maintenance Superintendent Carlton Cyrus. “We just give them some peace and quiet and during nesting season make sure that our contractors and maintenance workers don’t disturb them. This allows the chicks to hatch and gives them a greater opportunity for survival.”
Urban falcons like to nest atop bridges, church steeples and high-rise buildings because they provide an excellent vantage point for hunting prey which includes pigeons and small birds.
The falcons hatched around the first week of May and were banded three weeks later when the birds talons had grown to adult size. Each new chick receives an identification band for future monitoring by federal wildlife officials.
The banding is done by wildlife specialist Chris Nadareski, of the city Department of Environmental Protection’s Wildlife Studies division, which coordinates the city falcon program in cooperation with the State Department of Environmental Conservation.
These birds – peregrine falcons – were nearly wiped out in the 1960s because of pesticides in their food supply, and remain on the state’s Department of Conservation’s endangered birds list.
The peregrine nesting program began in the city in 1983, and the first two established nests were at the Verrazano-Narrows and Throgs Neck Bridges.
Peregrine falcons mate for life and nest in the same spot each year and the young falcons begin flying when they are about six-weeks-old.
Two girls were also born atop the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and named Rose in honor of Staten Island’s Rosebank neighborhood and Sunset for the neighborhood in Brooklyn.