Fall migration has been slowly starting over the last few weeks. Birds take some work to find at times, but there are interesting species moving through the area now. Today, I was lucky to have a number of birders direct me to a Tennessee Warbler in Central Park’s Maintenance Meadow. It was a very cooperative bird and it gave great looks for over two hours.
Pale Male continues to eat and hunt in the late afternoons east of the Great Lawn in Central Park. He’s not there every day, but he’s there often, as he has in past years. I caught up with him on Friday and Sunday.
Pale Male was in one of his favorite late summer/fall eating spots on Saturday. He likes a tree with a wide flat branch that makes a great picnic table in a triangle shaped lawn that is north of the Polish statue and south of the Obelisk. He was eating a rat. After he was done, he flew over to the Met. He should enjoy now before the roof reopens to visitors.
Odds and ends from a quiet day in the park. Central Park lost a number of trees and there were a lot of broken branches blocking paths after Tuesday’s storm. On Turtle Pond there was a Belted Kingfisher, a nice bird for early August. The Gill in the Ramble had two nice sized catfish and lots of minnows. It’s amazing that such a small stream could have such good sized fish.
I got lucky on Monday. When I arrived at Governors Island, the Red-tailed Parents and a fledgling flew back and forth from the weathervane to the communications tower for about 45 minutes. It looks like in early August the fledgling is being a pest. It’s time he/she starts to learn to hunt and he/she was looking for handouts. How this develops over the next few weeks will be fun to watch.
After all of the action was over, I did catch up with one of the adults who was harvesting branches. I think it was the male. It looks like he’s adding twigs to a different spot on the communications tower.
I went out to see the Red-tailed Hawk family on Governors Island today, and got to see the parents and at least one fledgling. Folks have reported seeing two fledgling, but I haven’t seen them together yet. Hopefully, I’ll see both at the same time the next time I go out to the island.
One of the parents was hanging out near Fort Jay in various trees only about 15 feet high. It seemed unusual but might be a defense against the American Kestrels (one is in the video and the photographs below) and Fish Crows that hang out around Fort Jay.
The fledgling was all over the place, at the weathervane, on the communications tower (where the nest is located), flying around Fort Jay and even circling in the sky.
