Birdwatcher to Use His Pastime to Bolster Island
Programs
Cliff Hagen is soliciting pledges for
each bird species he identifies by Dec. 31 to aid conservation and
education
Staten Island Advance - Sunday, January 28, 2007
For birdwatchers, their hobby revolves mostly around bringing a pair
of binoculars into wetlands or the woods.
For Cliff Hagen of Eltingville, it also means bringing a checkbook.
Aiming to use his pastime to bolster conservation and education
programs offered to the public by the Protectors of Pine Oak Woods,
Hagen is soliciting pledges from Staten Islanders by asking them to
make a donation to the organization for each bird species (a nickel,
a dime, a quarter or more per species) he identifies by Dec. 31.
The more birds I see, the more money will be donated to Protectors,
Hagen, 40, said. My plan is [to identify] 250. If I was to do that,
it would be fantastic.
With 109 bird species observed here in the 2006 Christmas Bird Count
in December, it may seem that his goal is overly ambitious.
But many birds only make seasonal appearances on Staten Island,
making the goal attainable by year's end, he said. (In 2001, Hagen
identified 236 species in the borough.)
If I had the best year and I found every bird I could possibly find,
and if luck and good fortune were shining upon me, I could find 250,
he said.
Dr. Dick Veit, chairman of the College of Staten Island's biology
department, said 300 bird species are easily identified in the five
boroughs each year.
There's a lot of rarities that just appear in small numbers each
year, Veit said.
Hagen, a father of two young daughters and a board member of
Protectors, began birdwatching about 10 years ago. He leads
birdwatching tours for Protectors and for the Blue Heron Park Nature
Center.
Over the next 12 months, he hopes to spend time looking for birds
before his workday begins -- he's a special education teacher at
Laurie Intermediate School, New Springville. He also plans to spend
part of his lunch breaks eyeing birds and will devote a chunk of
time on weekends to the project.
Hagen said he was inspired to embark on the year-long project after
reading a book HAGEN about The Big Year project in 1953, in which
Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher traveled 30,000 miles across
the country and Canada for one full year. The pair identified 572
bird species.
As for why he chose Protectors to donate to?
They're concerned with the entire Island, Hagen said, noting the
group's involvement in expanding the Greenbelt and establishing
parks like Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve in Charleston and
Crescent Beach Park in Great Kills. Had it not been for Protectors,
there would not be 250 species of birds on the Island.
Protectors president Hillel Lofaso said he was thrilled when he
learned of Hagen's intentions.
He's one of our premier younger naturalists on Staten Island, Lofaso
said, adding that the money raised will help in the group's mission
to preserve more open space in the borough.
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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