It was too hot to stay too long watching the Tompkins Square Hawks. Plus the punk bands celebrating the TSP riot, were a little too loud. But I did get to see two fledglings and Dora. There was a funny squirrel/hawk standoff too. A squirrel climbed a small tree that the hawk was in, and then realized it wasn’t a good idea. Luckily, no one was hurt.
I didn’t spend much time in Tompkins Square Park this evening, but saw a fledgling near Avenue A, two young hawks soaring over the Lower East Side and Dora on a church cross.
Tonight, Christo acted almost like it was late fall. He spend the evening in the park, casting a pellet, visited the flag pole and did some hunting. It was nice to spend time with him. One of the fledglings was also in the park and on nearby buildings. A nice evening, finally with some normal temperatures too.
This evening, a fledgling caught another Rock Pigeon and had a meal of it. While it was eating both parents, arrived and Christo, the male gave Dora a pigeon to eat. Humorously, the fledgling who had just eaten a whole pigeon, stole the pigeon from Dora.
New York City has begun to experiment with Dry Ice (frozen CO2) as an alternative to using rat poisons in city parks. The technique has turned out to be very effective and as been used recently in a few parks with known Red-Tailed Hawk populations in Manhattan.
Articles about the program have appeared in the New York Daily News and on NY1. For years there has been tension between hawk lovers and rat haters, and this solution seems to be a wonderful alternative to rodenticide use, that works for everyone.
Kudos to those who wrote letters of complaint after the death of the hawk earlier this year downtown, and many, many thanks to the Department of Health and the Parks Department for finding a safer rat control solution.
Today we watched a fledgling do at least fifteen hunting runs before finally catching a Rock Pigeon in Tompkins Square Park. It was exciting to watch and may have been one of the fledglings first kills.
The hawk’s sibling hunted a different way. It stole the pigeon leftovers from its sibling!
