Urban Hawks

January 13, 2020December 27, 2020Other Birds

From December to January

Two wonderful birds, seen in December have stayed for the New Year in the north of Central Park. An immature Red-Headed Woodpecker at 98th and the West Drive and a Green-Winged Teal, which was first seen on the Harlem Meer, rediscovered on the Reservoir on the Christmas Bird Count, and is now hanging out on the The Pool at 102nd Street. It is nice they have stayed.

They aren’t rare birds for the New York area, but they are infrequent visitors to Central Park. So, it’s nice to be able to have more than just a brief look at them both. The woodpecker continues to dig out cavities and cache acorns, while the teal, seems happy to hang out with the Mallards.

January 12, 2020December 15, 2020Bats

Eastern Red Bat

One of the joys of a warm winter’s day is finding an Eastern Red Bat hunting or perched on a tree. While Eastern Red Bats usually hunt at night, they will hunt during the day on a warm winter’s day.

Today, was such a day. Erika Piik found one flying in the Maintenance Field which is in The Ramble around 78th Street west of the East Drive. The bat would hunt insects for 30 minutes and then perch for a similar amount of time. It perched once on a tree trunk and once on tree branch. While flying it avoided being eaten by a Cooper’s Hawk, not once but twice!

In addition to photographing the bat, I was able to get nice recordings.

January 11, 2020December 15, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Pale Male

On Wednesday, Pale Male was on one of his favorite buildings at 73rd and Fifth Avenue. I has seen him at dusk further north on Monday and watched him catch a rat.

December 23, 2019December 15, 2020Owls

Long-eared Owl

The first day of winter brought a Long-eared Owl to Central Park. A wonderful bird that flew out for the evening around 5:15.

December 10, 2019General News

Congradulations NYC Audubon

After years of research and lobbying, NYC Audubon, along with a consortium of partners has gotten Initiative 1482B, the Bird Safe Glass Bill passed and sent off to the mayor, who is expected to sign the bill into law. NYC Audubon’s press release is here.

I’m so proud of the staff, board and members of NYC Audubon. This has been years in the making and included the extensive documentation of bird fatalities by scores of volunteers of Project Safe Flight who created the D-bird database. The hard work has paid off.

December 8, 2019December 28, 2020Other Birds

Red-headed Woodpecker

For about a week a Red-headed Woodpecker has been reported in Central Park. I finally got a chance to see it on Saturday. Like most of the Red-headed Woodpeckers we get in Manhattan, it is an immature bird, without a red head. It has selected a stand of oak trees west of ball field number 2 in the North Meadow and east of light W9802. (If you don’t know the “secret code” of the park street lights, this decodes as W=West Drive, 98=98th Street, 02=the second street light in the block.)

Red-headed Woodpeckers excavate cavities and then store nuts in them. If this one behaves like ones we’ve had in previous years, it should be fun to watch this activity through the winter.