REDTAILS IN LOVE AT TEATOWN!
For ways to reserve a copy of this book, go to Reserve or Renew Material
On Saturday, June 19 from 3-4:30pm, Teatown Lake Reservation will
welcome author Marie Winn for a conversation about Redtails in Love,
Wildlife Drama in Central Park. Following her presentation, Ms. Winn
will be joined by Teatown's live red-tail, Palakwai. Come here this
noted author tell us how she came to write Redtails in Love, published in
1998 and now in its tenth paperback edition. Publisher's Weekly
noted, "A nature columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author
of several other books, Winn tells a captivating story of hawks, humans
and other denizens of Central Park over a five year period. Winn brings a
wonderfully clear eye to all her observations, avian and otherwise". This great family program will include a book sale, signing, and a
live red-tail demonstration by a Teatown naturalist. Fee: Members/$6;
Non-Members/$8
For more information or to register, call Teatown Lake Reservation at 914.762.2912, ext. 10, on Tuesdays through Sundays, 9am-5pm. Teatown Lake Reservation is an 834-acre nature preserve and education center, located at 1600 Spring Valley Road, Ossining, NY 10562. Teatown's grounds include a 33-acres lake and 14 miles of hiking trails through woodlands and meadows, streams and marsh habitats. Hiking trails are open from dawn to dusk. Learn more at www.teatown.org.
Review by Bob Minzesheimer
Marie Winn writes a column on bird watching and nature for The Wall Street Journal, perhaps the most creative job in journalism since American poet Donald Hall was a baseball correspondent for The Times Literary Supplement of London. A dozen years ago, a pair of red-tailed hawks began an improbable Manhattan courtship, building a nest on the ledge of Mary Tyler Moore's Fifth Avenue high-rise, just down the block from Woody Allen's penthouse. Winn joined a faithful band of bird watchers, eclectic even by New York standards, and shared a wildlife drama that rivals anything on Broadway.After a slow opening, Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park is a delightful read, blessed with a lovable cast of characters, feathered and otherwise. It is not just about nature but about a human community drawn together by sharing the secret lives of the animals around us. Winn, a birding novice when the book begins (before she began writing her column), is an amateur who has done her homework. She shares the best of Henry David Thoreau, who kneow something about the simple joys of observation, as well as that "great duck authority, John C. Phillips." She vividly describes a bird-eat-bird world. The tiny saw-whet owl is lovely, she writes, but it is "not an innocent vegetarian. This is a bird that kills for a living." In the urban wilderness that is Central Park, hawks feast on rodents. She writes: "Accustomed to receiving handouts in perfect safety, the Central Park squirrel corps was totally unprepared for becoming handouts themselves for resident birds of prey." One of the hawks captures a rat and carries it to Allen's terrace for some alfresco dining.
She is aware of anthropomorphism, "that maligned yet unavoidable practice of attributing human emotions to other orders of animals unavoidable, at least, for those who spend time closely observing wildlife. It's not that animals have emotions like ours. It's that our emotions resemble those of other animals." In their first attempt at parenting, the hawks continue incubation. (Men please note: the male and female take turns.) "We knew this was not really faithfulness or hopefulness on their part just a matter of hormones. Still, we found the birds' devotion to their ill-fated nest heartbreaking."
There is both joy and sadness here, but as Winn concludes, "Only unhappy stories have real endings, after all. You never find out how the good stories end." Winn's prose is supplemented with a 25-page wildlife almanac, listing migrating hawks, butterflies and edible plants. Alas, there are no photos or drawings and no audiotape. It would be great to hear Marie Winn read her story, with all the proper ornithological sound effects.