I thought I’d spend some time where it all began, Pale Male’s nest on Fifth Avenue this afternoon. It was uneventful with Pale Male giving Octavia a break just before he went off to roost.
Octavia is an impatient hawk. She leaves the nest as soon as she sees Pale Male nearby. She doesn’t wait for him land on the nest like other females in the city due. It’s kind of funny, as though she’s saying “I’ve been waiting, where have you been?”
I went down to Bryant Park to look at the Chuck Will’s-widow at night to see if I could take pictures of it feeding. I did get to see it but it was only perching while I visited. At least it was awake!
The leaves are restricting the viewing angles for the Sheep Meadow nest, so I took what small window I had left from the south to take some portraits of the brooding female this afternoon.
I spent about an hour watching the Beresford nest this afternoon. Not much happened while I was there. The only excitement was a brief visit by an American Kestrel.
A Chuck Will’s-widow has been seen in Bryant Park for most of the week. This nocturnal insect eater is a rare visitor to Manhattan, so it has become a celebrity for the New York birder community to visit!
Tonight, I returned to The Beresford to view the exchanges between the pair. The female was sitting on the eggs when I arrived and after about forty minutes the male came to relieve her. She flew off towards the the Pinetum, which is north of the Great Lawn, and didn’t return for about thirty minutes.
After she returned, the male then left, first flying towards the bathrooms near the Delacorte Theater, and then he flew off to roost, west of Triplets Bridge.
It’s going to be a fun adventure learning more about this new pair.
I would recommend watching the video in full screen mode. Just click on the box in the lower right hand corner, and if needed click on the gear to select a larger resolution.
