Sadly, a Common Merganser is on The Lake in Central Park with a plastic band wrapped in its mouth and neck. It looks like the ring to a wide mouth beverage container. The Urban Park Rangers have tried to trap the bird over the last two days without success. Let’s hope they are able to net the bird soon.
This location is active again with the pair rebuilding the nest. The male is bringing sticks to the old location on an air conditioner and the new female to a faux balcony a few stories higher. It will be interesting to see who wins. I only got a few pictures of one of the hawks today, although I saw both escort an intruder out of the area.
A Graylag Goose, which has been seem for at least a week on the Reservoir was on The Lake of Central Park today. The spotted black/yellow bill coloration and white feathers around the bill, suggest that it is most likely a Graylag Goose x Swan Goose Hybrid. The bird is most likely an escapee from a poultry farm.
We used to have a number of Domestic Duck/Mallard hybrids on The Pond and The Meer and we had the Mandarin Duck last winter. So, another hybrid is just par for the course I guess.
Central Park has been very quiet this winter. Birds number are low, and many of our standard winter species are hard to find. But three species of raptors, are consistently being seen, Red-tailed Hawks, Cooper’s Hawks and Peregrine Falcons.
The park has a number of Cooper’s Hawks, mostly juveniles spending the winter. On Friday, two were working the Evodia Field feeders. One of them caught a sparrow. While eating it, the other tried to steal the food without success.
On my way north, I ran into Pale Male sunning outside the Maintenance bathrooms. Central Park had no fledglings last year. The pair at 95th Street/CPW lost their young about two weeks after they hatched and the adult female died. Pale Male and Octavia, who were not seen copulating last year, did not have their eggs hatch. And the pair on the San Remo, laid eggs without a nest yet again.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens this year. There definitely are three adult pairs of hawks in the park, with possibly a forth (59th and Fifth Avenue) or fifth pair (north of Mount Sinai). After Valentine’s Day, we should be seeing lots of copulation and nest building activity. Let’s hope we have at least one successful pair this year. Keep an eye out for activity over the next eight weeks.
Further north, the lone Peregrine Falcon that has been on the El Dorado, was there yet again.
If you told me before I started bird watching in Central Park that it was easy to have a three raptor day, I would have called you a liar. But in the winter it’s fairly easy. On Thursday, I had a Cooper’s Hawk eating a house sparrow, a Red-tailed Hawk eating a Rock Pigeon and a Peregrine Falcon. All within a block of the tennis courts.
New York, New York, what a wonderful place to live and bird.
I had some nice encounters with Pale Male and Octavia over the last two days. Pale Male was on the “Linda Building” at 73rd and Fifth Avenue on Sunday, and both hawks were near the Ancient Playground just north of the Met on Monday. It was nice to see Octavia, who can be hard to find in the winter. The first four images are of Pale Male and the last four are of Octavia.
