Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Sign
my guestbook. View
my guestbook. ← Previous Next → Back to the beginning
|
Breaking News: The City of Paris web site for researching
the nomenclature of Paris streets has been moved to This is where
you can look up the information about how/why any Paris street is named the
way it is. Lots of us Francophiles
were miffed when the old site for looking up the meaning of Paris street
names disappeared. We’re happy to see
this replacement. It is a bird-eat-bird world out there Starlings and pigeons can be
real pests in cities like Paris. They
especially plague the monstrous modern Mitterand library on left bank of the
Seine in the 13th arrondissement.
Their acidic excrement damages paint, stone, and the bucolic garden in
the middle of the library structure. What to do? Bring in the raptors! Two nesting boxes for peregrine
falcons were installed atop the library’s towers, which look like magnificent
open books, five years ago. Instead of attracting peregrine
falcons, so far only one pair of common kestrals, called faucon crécerelle in French, has nested in one box. These birds aren’t big enough to scare the
pigeons and starlings. So for now, a falconer must
visit the library site. He’s a 33
year-old guy named Cyril Orliac, from the Villacoublay military base. For two years, he’s been visiting the
Mitterand in “mission commando” with his couple of buses de Harris (Harris’s hawks).
At nightfall, when the
starlings settle in on the pines in the library’s garden, he lets the hawks
go to scare the group of little birds.
It works. The scared birds
leave. Cyril hangs around for a couple
hours to make sure the birds have really left, then he comes back the next
day to verify their departure. If the birds have come back, he
repeats his efforts. Usually two or
three days of this is sufficient for the starlings to get the message. But occasionally, when the birds remain
after three days, Cyril must shoot his rifle to scare them off. I’m not sure what happens with
the pigeons. They’re probably
unteachable. Cyril’s work is enough to scare
the starlings over the river into the Parc Bercy. But the solution only lasts for the
season. The next year, the starlings
are back at the library, hitting the books again, so to speak. The reason the peregrine
falcons have not taken to the nesting boxes is that during the nesting
season, from April to September, humans are too present on the rooftop. That’s when the cleaning and maintenance
equipment for the building’s exterior operates, and I guess it operates from
the roof. In 2008, a couple of falcons
did nest at La Defense in northwestern Paris.
But, because the nest boxes were too small, the falcons had no young. Except for the workers on the roof, the
Mitterand nest boxes are perfect for falcons.
They are the right size, they are near the river, in the bird
migration corridor, and they have an unobstructed view of excellent hunting
grounds. Yesterday, in preparation for
the Big Quiet Holiday Weekend, we went hunting at two grocery stores and the
wine shop for supplies. We also had to
walk a long way to find both newspapers, but finally we did find them. All of that took a while, so
when we at last deposited our purchases in the apartment, we decided to go
simply to the neighborhood brasserie at the Commerce park for dinner. Tom ordered the carpaccio of beef and
fries, and I had the Commerce pizza, which features smoked salmon and a
dollop of crème fraiche. The server who is sometimes somewhat deranged
was especially friendly to us. Even as
he saw us approaching the restaurant from some distance away, he recognized
us and waved us in. We’re just another
part of the neighborhood. The holiday we are experiencing
today is the Feast
of the Assumption. Even though
French people are less and less religious every year, according to the
newspapers anyway, this is an important holiday to them because it is in the
middle of the big vacation month. |
Saturday, August 15, 2009 NEW: Click here for
the Berlin Journal Aug. 2009
Fountain at the Place Santiago du Chili, on the avenue
de la Motte-Picquet and the rue de Grenelle.
Pretty bike parked on the Place Saint Sulpice. |
