He’s just fine.  The park remains closed, but here’s a view of Pale Male from Fifth Avenue.

I went out before the parks got closed for Hurricane Sandy late Sunday afternoon to look for Pale Male and his family.  I had no luck finding his fledglings, who have been seen by others over the last few days.  But I was able to get good looks at Pale Male and his new mate (on the left in the pictures of the pair). 

It was a confusing hawk watching day.  The hawks were on both Central Park West and Fifth Avenue.  But which hawks, was the confusing part.  Were they adults, were they juveniles, were they Pale Male’s offspring or migrants.

In the sky above Fifth Avenue, what I thought was Pale Male and his new mate, turned out to be Pale Male and a juvenile when I looked at the pictures at home. So, don’t ask me who is who, just enjoy the images of wonderful hawks in Manhattan!

Many of the hawk watching regulars in Central Park, came to the park on Sunday hoping to see one or both of the newly returned fledglings hunting.  While we found one of the fledglings, we didn’t see any hunting.  Maybe Monday!

Earlier this season, two of Pale Male’s offspring were poisoned by eating poisoned rats.  They were captured and send to WINORR on Long Island.  Today, they were returned to Central Park.   (I was unable to attend the release.  See the Roger Paw blog for reporting of the release.)

Their mother and later in the season, their sibling, disappeared. 

The mother was most likely killed by secondary poisoning.  

The other sibling may have died as well.  A young hawk was brought to the Wild Bird Fund about the time the youngster disappeared.  It died the same day.  Since the fall migration had already started, it wasn’t clear if this was the same hawk, but there is a good change it was.

These deaths and poisonings, along with a cluster of deaths in the spring due to poisonings, made 2012 the worst season for secondary poisoning deaths due to rodenticides for Red-tailed Hawks in New York City that I can remember.

The video and pictures below are of the two returned hawks, a male and a female.  It will be interesting to see how Pale Male responds to these two fledgling.  It’s very late in the year.  Will he force them out of the park?  Protect them?  Ignore them? What about his new mate?

This will be fun to watch over the next few weeks.

Pale Male spent about two hours perched on the Belvedere Castle flagpole this afternoon in a light rain.  I would say he might be patriotic, but he sliced on the flag.