The Sloppy AP
The reporter, Richard Pile, called in the afternoon and I spoke with him for around 15 minutes. I told him Bald Eagles flying over the park were not that rare and that there was a project up in Inwood to reintroduce Bald Eagles into that park. I also pointed him to my Web site to a photo of a an adult male eagle that had flown 20-30 feet over my head at the Meer last spring.
Ben Cacace was kind enough to correct the misspelling of my last name on e-birds but I was troubled by several other errors in such a short article and wonder if this type of sloppiness is standard operating procedure at the Associated Press. I have not received a reply to my e-mail asking for an explanation.
Other errors of note:
My name is Cal Vornberger. The name of my book is "Birds of Central Park." This and the spelling of my last name could have been easily checked on my Web site. I spelled out the URL for Mr. Pile but he never asked for the spelling of my last name.
Both quotes attributed to me are paraphrases and misrepresent what I said. I said I had photographed Bald Eagles fishing off ice floes in Peekskill and very occasionally they could be seen floating down the river this far south. I also said no Bald Eagle has ever been observed perched in a tree in Central Park. I said nothing about nesting there.
Lincoln has a 400mm lens. Its focal length might be extended to 800mm with the addition of a teleconverter.
Yigal Gelb is the program director at New York City Audubon.
Here is the article:
Famed NYC Hawk Sees Bald Eagle Soar By
Filed at 2:15 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pale Male, the famed red-tailed hawk of Central Park, was perched on the 22nd floor of the swank Beresford apartment building on Wednesday when the national emblem of the United States soared past, carrying a large fish in its talons.
''Pale Male usually sits there sort of relaxed, but he sat up straight when he saw the bald eagle,'' said Lincoln Karim, the man who made Pale Male and his mate Lola famous with his extensive photographic record of the romantic raptors raising fledglings in their high-rise aerie on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.
Karim, doing his usual morning routine of photographing Pale Male, had the hawk in his viewfinder when the bird suddenly went to attention.
''I looked up when Pale Male did and saw the eagle,'' Karim said. ''They fly over in migration season, but very high. I have never seen one that close.''
At that, the white-headed bird was distant enough that Karim, an Associated Press Television News technician, needed his 800mm lens to freeze it in flight, and all but one of his photos were slightly blurred by movement.
The photo showed the eagle as it appears on the national escutcheon -- wings spread, head cocked in vigilance, but with what looked like a striped bass in its talons, instead of the flowing ribbon reading, ''E Pluribus Unum.''
Bald eagles, once highly endangered and always strictly protected by federal law, have prospered in the New York region in recent years. As fish-eaters, they live in the Hudson River highlands, and several have been reintroduced under a city program to the Inwood section of upper Manhattan. They can be seen in winter, riding ice floes down the river and fishing along the way, said Cal Von Burger, a freelance photographer and author of a book, ''The Birds of Central Park.''
Von Burger said he has spotted eagles over the park numerous times in migrating seasons but none has chosen to live there.
''They like high perches, and the trees aren't big enough, but unlike peregrines and other falcons they don't like buildings either,'' he said.
Yigal Gelb, executive director of New York City Audubon, which protects wild birds and their habitats, said eagles were rare in the park.
''Seeing one,'' he said, ''is a pretty big deal.''
