My visit to the Lower East Side started with a trip to Houston and Avenue D where I saw a Red-tailed Hawk fly off a nest under construction on a school air conditioner. This is the same site of a nest built in 2008. We’ll see what happens with this pair/nest.
Then it was off to Tompkins Square Park, where the activity was similar to yesterday’s.
The hawks in Tompkins Square Park are brooding. Today, I got to see a few nest exchanges, both hawks share a rodent, and see them copulate.
After the snowstorm the park ended up with an record number of over 40 American Woodcocks on Thursday. It also had a Wilson’s Snipe. While the number of American Woodcocks was much lower in the park today, I was able to get photographs of both species. The first two photographs are of the American Woodcock, the rest are of the Wilson’s Snipe.
Link to New York Times about this year’s Woodcock migration.
The Washington Square Park hawks have one egg in the nest with one or two more to come over the next few days. The male gave the female several long breaks during the day. At sunset, the male started hunting for rodents in the park. He ended up catching a rat as it ran across a playground. He then went to a few different location before calling to his mate in case she wanted the rodent. When she didn’t come he gave us the slip going towards the east. It was fun to have the extra hour of daylight after work to watch them.
Update 3-14-17: The second egg was laid at 11:45 am on Tuesday.
Update 3-17-17: The third egg was laid on Friday afternoon.
I’ve started a new Manhattan Red-tailed Hawk Nest spreadsheet for 2017. It’s been too cold to venture up north for me to see how the upper Manhattan nests, so it’s missing any details for nest above 125th Street. If you have any input on these nests or news of any new nests, please drop me a note. Thanks.
The Fifth Avenue nest seems to have settled down now that it has eggs. Octavia was hunkered down while I visited and Pale Male just stayed near the nest. Let’s hope they do well through our Tuesday snowstorm.
