BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIRD CITY - In St. Louis and other U.S. metropolises, birds of prey, such as this peregrine falcon and her chicks, are now part of the landscape

National Wildlife, April-May, 2001 by Cynthia Berger

James Baggett is the editor of a gardening magazine, but on a brisk afternoon last spring, his mind was not on plants. "Wow!" he said. "A red-tailed hawk just flew right by my window."

The stout hawk with the rusty-red tail is common in North America, so usually a red-tail sighting barely boosts a bird-watcher's heartbeat. But this sighting was something special: Baggett's window is 12 stories up a Manhattan skyscraper, where the bird he's most likely to see is a pigeon, not a predatory bird with a four-foot wingspread.

Birds of prey, or raptors, aren't unknown in New York City or other urban areas, of course. Peregrine falcons, for example, inhabit the Big Apple, Chicago, San Francisco and other U.S. cities. Rescued from near extinction by a captive-breeding program and recently removed from the U.S. Endangered Species List, the peregrine owes its recovery in part to its ability to adapt to city life. And this is just one of several types of large predatory birds to flock downtown in recent years. Merlins, the peregrine's smaller cousins, now stalk sparrows on the streets of Saskatoon, Canada. Cooper's hawks hang out in courtyards in Tucson. And those New York red-tails enjoy the ultimate measure of urban success: Nesting on Mary Tyler Moore's apartment building and perching on Woody Allen's balcony, they are the subject of the best- selling book Red-Tails in Love.

"There's no doubt in my mind: Not only have more species of raptors adapted to life in cities, but raptor numbers seem to be increasing," says McGill University researcher David Bird, coeditor of the book Raptors in Human Landscapes. He estimates that at least a dozen different North American raptors are now spotted routinely in cities.

And where the big birds go, scientists follow. In the past, being a bird ecologist often meant working in pristine places. "Now there are a lot of people going full steam, studying birds in urban areas," says John Marzluff, a researcher at the University of Washington. "We're seeing more advanced investigations of how birds adapt to life in an urban environment, the evolutionary reasons for change in an urban area. And researchers are also looking at the conservation implications for urban bird populations."

Before scientists could begin these studies, however, they had to shake off some old assumptions. Consider the case of the Mississippi kite. Not long ago, the scientific literature said these birds nested exclusively in woodlands along prairie rivers. Actually, the small, gray raptor with the startling bloodred eyes is now a common sight in such sizable cities as Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma City.

"Well, sure, kites used to nest along rivers," says Jim Parker. "On the prairie, that's where the trees were!"

Parker, a Maine-based wildlife rehabilitator and educator who studied kites for his doctoral research at the University of Kansas, credits people with helping create habitat for Mississippi kites. In particular, he says, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) planted large numbers of trees in prairie states in the 1930s. "The trees planted by the CCC matured in the 1970s, and that's when I really saw the kites start moving into urban areas," he says. Golf courses, too, are excellent habitat for kites, and Parker has also spotted the birds nesting in suburban backyards, near a city courthouse and even on a traffic island.

Another raptor that hasn't read the scientific literature about its habitat preferences is the Cooper's hawk. This crow-sized, long-tailed hawk was once thought to require expanses of pristine woodland. But recent research indicates that Cooper's hawks in developed areas can fare better than those in natural environments. Robert Rosenfield, who studies the raptor at the University of Wisconsin, has found that hawks in Stevens Point, Wisconsin (population 25,000), are not only willing to nest closer together than their forest counterparts, but they produce more offspring. One reason may be the many starlings, robins and chipmunks in neighborhoods, which serve as Cooper's hawk convenience food.

Jim Parker sees the same thing in his urban kites: They nest closer together and fledge more offspring than kites in "natural" habitats. And Fred Gehlbach of Baylor University, a pioneer in comparing urban and rural raptors, has drawn the same conclusions for eastern screech owls around Waco, Texas.

What draws raptors downtown? Bill Mannan of the University of Arizona and his former graduate student Clint Boal, now with the Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit, have examined this question for Cooper's hawks in Tucson. "Obviously, the desert Southwest is a dry environment," says Boal, "so the city is attractive because birds can find water," in the form of birdbaths, swimming pools and lawn irrigation systems. The hawks also find fine dining, in the form of mourning doves and Inca doves, which are more abundant in the city than in the surrounding desert. Most important, they find trees-including many tall, exotic species planted by city officials during the past 50 years.