Roy Harp and assistant trailer engineer, Blue.

A huge thanks to HarborLAB volunteer Roy Harp for modifying our boat trailer to carry all ten of our tandem kayaks! That work, aided by the currently injured (no, not from kayaking!) Facilities Manager Patricia Menje Erickson, will enable us to increase our service to Gantry Plaza State Park and other locations where water is clean enough for kids and where youth and students can perform environmental service learning activities. For example, this summer HarborLAB paddled with Hour Children and CUNY students to remote islands to plant spartina and remove plastic trash.

Our thanks again to Jersey Paddler for the discounted purchase price and to Patricia’s crew, especially Mairo Notton, for improving the trailer upon receipt. Many thanks also to those who drive the trailer to make community programs possible — Patricia, Jeff Lim, Gil Lopez, and Roy.

We’ll put the trailer to work this Sunday in a fundraising paddle to support our environmental education work!

HarborLAB teamed up with the Hunters Point Community Middle School, the Environmental Cooperation Organization of CUNY Baruch College, and Lamar Outdoors to deliver a message in support the People’s Climate March on Sunday, September 21. Our goal was simple:  to display a “350” banner in the water with the United Nations as a backdrop. Our civilization grew in an atmosphere that was composed of 275 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Because we’ve been burning so much carbon-loaded fossil fuel, currently we’re over 400ppm. The attendant consequences of releasing CO2, which traps heat, are ocean warming and acidification, sea level rise, chaotic weather patterns, air temperature rises, and the loss of whole species and ecosystems. NASA atmospheric scientists calculated that our best hope for the future is to quickly reduce the CO2 content of our air below 350 parts per million.

The banner was conceived by Erik Baard of HarborLAB and painted by Hunters Point Community Middle School students under the direction of art teacher and environmentalist Lucinda Kalin. The banner was the back of a used billboard advertisement donated by Lamar Outdoors. HarborLAB will permanently display the banner at its site for viewing by those crossing the Pulaski Bridge. The floats will be reused as safety perimeter lines.

Security concerns are high in the East River while world leaders are visiting the UN. Indeed, HarborLAB heard over its marine radios how divers were swimming beneath the waterline at the UN to check for bombs. Despite this heightened alert, the US Coast Guard and New York Police Department’s Harbor Unit were extraordinarily courteous and supportive of our effort, escorting us from the Newtown Creek to Gantry Plaza State Park. Within the cove of the park, we unfurled the banner for the public to view and take a moment to think about what’s at stake in the UN Climate Summit and in our daily decisions.

Many thanks to those who helped!

Ron Kleinman helping to pack away the banner and its floats. Hunters Point Community Middle School is the grey building at right in the background.

There might be a Belted Kingfisher burrow in the earthen face of Hunters Points, where it drops into the East River and Newtown Creek mouth. HarborLAB spotted one last weekend while paddling with a group of CUNY Baruch College students from the Environmental Cooperation Organization. These beautiful, fish-eating, shallow diving birds typically nest 3′ to 6′ into a steep bank like that of Hunters Point, but can go as deep as 15′. They’re not often seen in these parts. It’s worth investigating whether development will be destroying its habitat, or if the coming park will restore slopes for this and other burrowing birds. It’s also very possible that this fellow was migrating south, given the season, and another sighting on the Bronx River just days before.

Looking carefully at these two photos (click to enlarge), you can see the bird on a bare branch overhanging the water.

Okay, that distant silhouette has got to be a bit frustrating. Here’s a closer view of another of the species, on the Bronx River, taken by Charles Berenguer, Jr. at about the same time. Notice the beautiful composition.

Still not satisfied? Here’s a closeup from the Cornell ornithology page. Note that coloring varies from blue to slate to near black. Females have more red banding beneath and, according to some sources, are slightly larger.

Interestingly, the species prefers riffles, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We lack those here, but perhaps the shallows and light turbulence of tidal currents passing through areas of rip rap rock, such as those that foot Hunters Point, might simulate it?