While looking for Central Park’s Snowy Owl, which has stayed much longer than expected, we ran across an Eastern Coyote.
It was in the North Meadow, and fairly relaxed before deciding to bolt northeast towards the compost heap.
Some resources about Eastern Coyotes:
Wednesday, February 17th was difficult night for owl watching. While I saw the owl a few times, it moved almost every time I saw it.
Hunting seems to be concentrated around two areas, the Tennis courts and the Compost Heap.
For a lot of searching, I have only have a few seconds of video.
On Tuesday, February 16th, Snowy Owl appeared on the baseball fields of the eastern side of the North Meadow on schedule. It was first on a backstop, then the ground, returned to a backstop and was on the ground again before flying southwest. It made lots of playful jumps on the ground, which was now partially without snow.
Later it was on the Tennis Court fences and then on the ground. We lost it for awhile, but it was found again on a Tennis Court fence about thirty minutes later.
This owl continues to delight. It played with leaves and grass, much like a young Red-tail pounces on sticks.
The Snowy Owl had been using both the Eastern and Western halves of the North Meadow ballfields since it arrived. On Sunday, February 14th, the owl made a few passes, and I believe one visit to a backstop, but didn’t linger like it had been doing on other nights.
I stayed until about 7, and then went home to cook dinner. After dinner was done I returned to the park. I started at the North Meadow, since I’ve seen the owl eat here late in the evening, but then went around to other locations it has been seen.
I ended up at the western of the two North Gatehouses of the Reservoir and there was the Snowy Owl. (Many birders call them pump houses but the Croton Waterworks system is gravity fed.) Without anyone there, it stayed perched there from 10 pm until at least midnight, except for two brief flights over the Reservoir.
On Thursday, February 11th, the Snowy Owl arrived at the North Meadow from the northeast and left the same way. So, three independent owl watchers ended up at the Grassy Knoll in hopes of seeing where the owl flew in from.
The owl had other ideas.
We saw a bird fly from the south around 5:50 pm. It was a Canada Goose that had been on the North Meadow by itself for much of the afternoon. I thought it was the owl at first, and just as I realized my mistake, the Snowy Owl appeared about twenty feet over the goose. It had been chasing the goose. The goose went out of view and the owl tried to land at the top of a tree. The branches were too small so the owl turned around and landed on the North Meadow.
Within a minute, a cross country skier flushed the owl and it went up to a backstop. After a few minutes it flew northwest and out of view. We looked for it but had not luck finding it. I made a loop around the western section of the North Meadow, and when I returned to the eastern section, the Snowy Owl was on the ground eating a Brown Rat. I returned around 6:45, so it had quickly caught the rat and returned to the field.
It was good to see that the owl is finding food quickly. Hopefully, it will be well feed by the time it returns north.
You may have seen some news about the Coyote that’s been seen in Central Park lately. We’ve had sightings consistently over the last few years in the park. Late winter is a common time for sightings. Many young Coyotes are pushed out of their family units in the late winter, and a few have been wandering into Manhattan each year.
I followed a Coyote in 2010 and had a wonderful experience. At the time, we’d had some negative outcomes with previous Coyotes in the Manhattan, and I wrote about the issues. The questions at the time was do you try and capture the Coyote or just let it stay. Given the experiences of other cities, the answer seems to be just let it be.
If you use the category search on the right, and select Central Park Coyote 2010, you’ll see what I wrote back then.
A new resource that might be helpful if you’re interested in Urban Coyotes is the Gotham Coyote Project website.