Third times a charm. On my third visit to the 350 Central Park West nest this year, I was finally able to watch the new male on the nest and watch the pair together. The new male, with his light eye color looks to be a young bird. It looks like they’re all set for 2019.
The hawk watchers on Fifth Avenue have been expecting to see Pale Male and Octavia begin to copulate as it’s after Valentine’s Day, but there have been no reports yet. I been seeing a nest visit around 2 p.m. and then various random sightings over the past week or so, which is what I saw today.
This afternoon was relatively quiet on Fifth Avenue. The pair flew together and chased off a Coopers Hawk and a Red-tailed Hawk. But there wasn’t a late day visit to the nest. We did get to see some nice views of Octavia, who at first glance like Pale Male in the golden light of dusk.
I only got to see one visit to the nest by Octavia and then got to see Pale Male on a balcony a few blocks north of the nest building tonight. But it was nice to see both of them even though there wasn’t much action.
I went up to look at the 350 Central Park West nest again and finally found one of the adults for the first time in 2019. The hawk was sitting in a tree 100 feet inside the park at 96th and Central Park West, and after a long period flew over to the empty church on the corner.
While I haven’t seen Pale Male and Octavia copulate this season, they’ve been spending time together, both have been working on the nest, and chasing out intruders into their territory. It’s so nice for another year of hawk nesting to begin once again.
