CORONA — Celebrate the city's birds of prey on Saturday at Raptor Fest at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park with live shows featuring falcons, hawks and other birds.
The 19th annual Raptor Fest is a way for the Parks Department's Urban Park Rangers to connect New Yorkers to nature's creatures that share our city.
"We are educating the public about the benefits of birds of prey," Richard Simon, a director and ranger, said.
The festival was first held in Central Park and later moved to Prospect Park. Last year was supposed to be its first time in Queens, but threats of Hurricane Joaquin rained out those plans.
This year's event, from noon to 3 p.m., will feature education tables from the Urban Park Rangers and other partner organizations, he said.
Skyhunters in Flight, which rehabilitates birds of prey, will also host two live shows featuring falcons, hawks or any of the other birds they help get back into the wild.
Noted wildlife rescuer Bobby Horvath, who runs Wildlife In Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation (WINORR), will have tables featuring some of the birds he's rehabilitating from injury or illness.
Birds of prey can be found all across the city, Simon said, and the Parks Department keeps track of them through its Urban Park Rangers.
Manhattan has the highest concentration of birds, perhaps due to the availability of food and number of tall buildings, he said.
Birds live in parks, forests, and college campuses — like the family of protective hawks at St. John's University that attacked people who got too close to an injured baby this summer.
A hawk has even made its home at the top of the Unisphere.
But officials can never get a true accounting of all of the birds living among us. They are wild, after all, Simon said.
"[The counting] is mostly limited to New York City nests in parks," he said.
Saturday's Raptor Fest will be held from 12 until 3 p.m., is family-friendly and free.
