On the north face of the building at the SE corner of 84th and East End Avenue, on a balcony with three sliding glass doors, the local Carl Schurz Park Red-tailed Hawks were bringing twigs to balcony. This early in the season, it’s hard to know if this is just an experiment or if it will be their nest for the year. Let’s hope it works out for them.
I found a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk eating a Grey Squirrel on a Great Lawn baseball backstop. After I got closer, it had finished eating. This is the same hawk I’ve seen chasing squirrels over the last few days here. It was good to see it able to catch one. As I started photographing, a young Cooper’s Hawk appeared next to the Red-tailed Hawk. I suspecting it was hoping to get leftovers. I’ve seen young hawks of both species steal food from the other species in the past.
I made two detour before visiting Central Park today. First, I saw the nest that had been partially built on the St. Regis Hotel. It’s on the high floor in the northern most oval window facing Fifth Avenue.
Then to went to see if the 310 West 72nd Street nest was active. It was and the female was sitting on the nest and the male escorted a balloon out of the territory.
I got an email for Ben Cacace yesterday about Red-tailed Hawk activity on the Upper East Side. He had seen hawks bringing twigs to a Con Edison smokestack at their steam plant that takes up the block of 74th to 75th Street between the FDR Drive and York Avenue.
I checked it out as soon as could. The hawks are using the middle ring of the three catwalks around the tower. It looks as though they have only just started to bring materials to the smokestack. The position of the potential nest is just a few degrees counter clockwise from the ladder on the west southwest side of the smokestack.
Sometimes hawks change nest locations at the last minute so this isn’t guaranteed to be the final nest location. But if they do end up using this spot, it will be a bit difficult to watch. The best view will be from the roofs of nearby apartment buildings.
It will also be an interesting summer if they do have a successful nest. John Jay seems like too small a park to bring up fledglings. It wonder if the territory includes part of Roosevelt Island, and if they will bring the fledglings across the river over sometime over the summer?
A. Potential Nest Site
B. Perch
C. Perch
D. John Jay Park
Tonight the Barred Owl used the time after fly out to do a “neighborhood watch” and investigate two roosting raptors, a Cooper’s Hawk and a Red-tailed Hawk. The juvenile Cooper’s Hawk decided to fly out of its Spruce tree roost, but the Red-tailed Hawk stayed put. After investigating the neighbors, the owl went back to its normal woods. Sadly, these encounters were impossible to photograph.
While I wasn’t able to film the encounters, I tonight was the first time I noticed the Barred Owl investigating roosting hawks. It stopped by a roosting Cooper’s Hawk, who I heard call. And then I saw it in the same tree of a Red-tailed Hawk who also called.
The evening was also the conjuction of Jupiter and Saturn, which I was able to watch from the top of the path near the Polish Statue around 80th Street.
