While drivers struggled and slogged through traffic on the Throgs Neck and Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial bridges, they were unknowingly commuting underneath some of the City’s newest members.
Several peregrine falcon chicks were born on the towers of the two Queens bridges, hundreds of feet above the ground. The Rockaway births were 215 feet high on the Marine Parkway’s Rockaway tower and 360 feet high on the Throgs Neck’s Bronx tower.
The Dept. of Environmental Conservation provided nesting boxes for the newborns to ease their transition. The City’s assistance is part of an MTA program to help the peregrine falcon population, which nearly went extinct in the 1960s due to pesticides.
Although being born on one of the City’s congested bridges may seem like a nightmare to any New Yorker, it’s good to see that the baby birds were no worse for the wear.
