A Brooklyn Writer's Dream: To See Two Sides to Every Coin

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Genteel Decay: Urban Animals Take Advantage

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Prospect Park has many elegant buildings. This one, which I call the Dance Pavilion, is where I sit when I write in the park. It looks great from a distance, but get closer...

The elegant eaves are moldering into decay.

It's an opportunity for birds. There must be 25 sparrows making a nest in different spots along the eaves. You can see the twigs hanging down over the decorative corner.

Here's a guilty party, under the pavilion's vaulted roof.

Here's the evidence.

Where a light fixture used to be, more bits of straw and twigs hang down.

A close-up of the decay and the nesting opportunity it presents.

The sparrows were struggling with a great big paper napkin. So I shredded mine and left the pieces in a corner out of the wind.

There are other creatures nearby. This is a granddaddy, more than six inches long.

These are babies, a fraction of his size.

A family on a log.

A red-winged blackbird, singing in a London plane tree near the lake's edge. How about you? Do you want to see the pavilion, and places like it, conserved? Or do you prefer to see animals having safe and dry nests? Comment below!