My post about brooding nests yielded news that the Inwood Hill Park nest started brooding on Sunday. So, that makes the fourth confirmed, active nest of the season.
I went up to 350 Central Park West to see if they were brooding yet, but it looks like they haven’t yet. They did however copulate over the playground at 96th/97th.
Three nests in Manhattan have been confirmed to have brooding hawks so far this year, Washington Square Park, Tompkins Square Park and Fifth Avenue. This leaves a number of previous nest sites to check over the next few weeks: Inwood Hill Park, Randalls Island, St. John the Divine, 350 Central Park West, and 310 West 72nd Street. (I’ve heard good reports about activity at each nest except for Randalls Island and 310 West 72 Street but these are never closely watched.)
This leaves a large amount of northern Manhattan without known nests, including northern Riverside Park, High Bridge Park and Fort Tryon Park. Also, although the male died at 96th and Lexington and the nest was removed after the building was tagged with graffiti in the fall, may area residents have reported seeing hawks in the area. The CCNY nest on Shepard Hall lost the male just before nesting season last year, so it is possible that hawks will return to this nest too.
I doubt Manhattan only has eight nests this year. Let’s hope we find the new ones soon!
So this is my preliminary guess at nests for this season and older sites that will need checking:
I made two visits to Fifth Avenue today. Once in the morning, where things seemed to be like they had for the last few weeks with both hawks escorting out intruders and making brief visits to the nest. But when I visited this evening, things had changed. Octavia clearly had started brooding. She was sitting tight on the nest for the first time this season!
American Woodcocks have been migrating through New York City this past week. I caught up with one on Saturday in the Ramble of Central Park. It was doing it’s best to stay hidden, which it did an excellent job of doing!
Hawk watchers at Fifth Avenue got to see many nest visits, watch Pale Male chase off a juvenile Red-tail and share food with Octavia over the last few days. We all are looking forward to the 2019 nesting season.
The hawks at 350 Central Park West seem all set of the season. The nest is in much better shape than last year and looks great. One of the hawks was on the church at 96th Street for twenty minutes. Then both hawks visited the nest and they then copulated while I was there in the early afternoon today. The building is excited to have them nesting and seems very protective of them which is great news.
