Witness the Greening of Greenpoint this Fall!

The Newtown Creek Wildflower Roof and Community Space, Under Construction
© NYC Audubon

Join NYC Audubon this fall in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for walks, talks, and a Wildflower Festival at the Newtown Creek Wildflower Roof and Community Space and the Urban Oasis in McGolrick Park. The Newtown Creek Wildflower Roof and Community Space will be one of the larger green roofs in the City, constructed with a $971,782 legacy grant awarded by the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund to NYC Audubon and its partners as part of a settlement with ExxonMobil. NYC Audubon has partnered with Alive Structures, founded by Marni Majorelle, to design and install a bird-friendly wildflower meadow. In addition to attracting wildlife and diverting runoff rainwater, the rooftop will have outdoor and indoor educational facilities, with programs throughout the year. This fall's Greenpoint events include:

Kingsland Wildflower Festival at the Newtown Creek Wildflower Roof and Community Space
Saturday, September 24, 11am-3pm

Bird Survey at McGolrick Park
Tuesday, October 4, 8-9am (Rain Date Wednesday, October 5)

Nature and Joy: A New Defense of the Natural World, a Presentation by Michael McCarthy
Saturday, October 8, 5-7:30pm

Click here to learn more and register for all of NYC Audubon's Greenpoint events!

Funding provided by the Office of the New York State Attorney General and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation through the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund.

Tribute in Light Monitoring 2016 Recap

Tribute in Light 2016
© NYC Audubon

This past Sunday night, the Tribute in Light memorial once again shone bright over Lower Manhattan, projecting two beams of light into the night sky to pay tribute to the lives lost on September 11, 2001. NYC Audubon has monitored the memorial since 2002 to ensure that night-migrating songbirds, which in some years are attracted in huge numbers to the Tribute's powerful light beams, are not exhausted and injured during the all-night event.

NYC Audubon staff, board members, and volunteers monitored this year’s memorial from 8pm Sunday night to 6am Monday morning. At around 11pm on Sunday night, migration activity began to increase and many birds were observed 'trapped' in the light, circling and calling to one another. Thank you to Michael Ahern Production Services, Inc. and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum for letting us turn the lights off for a brief period three times during the early morning hours, allowing birds to continue on their migration.

There were many species observed throughout the night, including American redstarts, black-and-white warblers, Baltimore orioles, and cuckoos. We even saw a peregrine falcon that was taking advantage of the congregation of small birds.

Birds weren't the only things we were watching though; we brought along a bat detector that was able to detect six different species of bat flying overhead! We even had a visit from a praying mantis around 3:30am. Be sure to check out NYC Audubon’s Facebook page or our Twitter page for photos and video from the event.

To learn more about the work NYC Audubon does to protect migrating birds, visit our Project Safe Flight page.

Top Banner Photo Credits: Great Egret Nesting Colony © NYC Audubon; Group of Birders © Kati Solomon; All Others © François Portmann.

Bottom Photo Credits: Plumb Beach Cleanup © NYC Audubon; Freshkills Park © City of New York, NYC Parks, Freshkills Park.

* This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.