Searching for the Wild in New York City

A writer on a lunch break in Manhattan discovers the wild all around

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Canada goose asleep on the Central Park reservoir.

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Red-tailed hawk devouring a brown rat atop a streetlight in Jackson Heights, Queens.

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Jay in Central Park, one of the city's birding hot spots.

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Belted kingfisher on Randall Island. A passing train is loaded with municipal waste.

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Tree swallow at the tidal gate pond, which was built to drain Flushing Meadows.

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Rare common loon in Bushwick Lagoon, an inlet of the East River that was long the site of an oil terminal.

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American robin looking like Salvador Dalí in Flushing Meadows.

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Chickadee nibbling dry sumac berries in winter at Randall's. 

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An overwintering phoebe outside a window in Queens.

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Black-crowned night heron cleaning its beak in Corona Park.

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Great egret on the industrial waterfront of College Point. Much of New York's waterfront is off-limits or inaccessible to humans, creating oases for hardy animals.

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Dunlin in the afternoon surf at Rockaway Beach.

Steve Bodzin is a reporter for REDD Intelligence and an occasional photographer with his eye on the wildlands punctuating the streets of New York City.