We finally are starting to get some fall temperatures and tree leaves are changing colors. Pale Male has become harder to find, but he went to Cedar Hill late in the afternoon, after chasing away a migrating raptor. He hunted two times, but came up empty on both passes.
On Saturday, after weeks of easy hawk watching, it was harder. Octavia and Pale Male spent time on the Carlyle Hotel but otherwise were hide to find until dusk. Pale Male left the hotel and went to a favorite tree on Castle Walk, before roosting near Glen Span Arch.
After dark I listened for bats. I had listened for bats twice earlier in the week. As I had those last few nights, I had plenty of Eastern Red Bats at the Model Boat Pond, but I only heard Eastern Red Bats. On a hunch, I decided to walk to the lawn between the Summer Stage and Fifth Avenue. There I heard a large number of Big Brown Bats, and a Silver-haired Bat.
For another week in a row, Pale Male hunted along 79th Street. This afternoon he caught two rodents. Here are some pictures of him eating and relaxing.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are migrating through the city and it’s a pleasure to watch them. How something that small, can be so fast, amazes me even after years of watching them.
Pale Male has become such a regular it’s almost boring to watch him this last month. He continues his regular afternoon visits to the trees around 79th Street.
Yesterday, I spent an hour listening for bat echolocations, as well as watching them around the Conservatory Water, aka the Model Boat Pond. Bats are migrating through the city, and with it getting dark earlier, I don’t have to stay out too late! So the next few weeks are perfect to go bat watching.
Using the Wildlife Acoustics Echo Meter Touch 2 Pro Bat Detector and iOS software, I was able to capture a large number of echolocations. The software does its best to identify which species of bat it hears, sort of like a Shazam for bats. The software can make mistakes, so my results could have errors. While I recorded a great number of bat passes, a single bat could have created many of them.
Click on either chart to enlarge it.