Urban Hawks

September 1, 2012December 26, 2020Other Birds

Red Crossbills, Day 2

On Saturday, I was able to study the Red Crossbills more closely. The flock made a circuit about every half hour that included trees in the upper lawn area of Shakespeare Garden and a small mud flat in the Upper Lobe.

The Crossbills had a wonderful way of extracting the seeds from the cones. It was pluck a cone and then, work the cone from the bottom, extract one seed, husk the seed, spin the cone, and repeat until you need to fetch another cone. It reminded me of how humans eat artichokes!

August 31, 2012December 26, 2020Other Birds

Red Crossbill

Today, thanks to the excellent birding skills of Jacob Drucker which were followed up on by Anders Peltomaa, many NYC birders got to enjoy a flock of Red Crossbills in Central Park. The light made photographing them tough, but it was enjoyable to watch them. The Red Crossbills are a new bird for my life list.

The video has regular and slow motion clips of the Red Crossbills extracting seeds for cones. The Red Crossbills were identified as the Type 3 subspecies using recordings made by Anders Peltomaa, by Matthew Young and Andrew Farnsworth, the flight-call-wizards of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This subspecies specializes in smaller and softer cones from trees such as Spruce, Fir and Hemlock.

August 30, 2012December 26, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Pale Male, Same Time, Same Channel

Pale Male, continues his evening schedule of hanging around west of the Met. This may continue well into the fall. Watching Pale Male during nesting season is any easy way to see him from afar, these late summer evenings with him are an easy way to see him up close.

August 29, 2012December 26, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Regular Habit

Pale Male continued his nightly habit of hunting before roosting yet again tonight. He’s hunting in area he’s used year after year during the fall.

He’s caught another rat. To those who’ve postulated that Pale Male’s longevity is somehow connected to “a preference for pigeons”, the facts just don’t add up! Pale Male loves his rodents.

August 26, 2012December 26, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Pale Male

I spent a few hours late this afternoon and early evening observing Pale Male. I found him first on the Beresford Apartments and then later east of the Great Lawn. As he has been doing fairly regularly, he had a rat for dinner and then roosted.

August 26, 2012December 26, 2020Eagles, Falcons, Hawks and Osprey, Extralimital, Other Animals, Other Birds

Réserve Naturelle des Sept-Iles, Bretagne, France

On vacation in Brittany, France, I discovered a wonderful two hour cruise to a nature preserve, off of Pleumeur-Bodou. The cuise visits a set of islands that host breeding puffins and gannets, that this year is celebrating its centenial as a nature preserve.

The puffins had already left for the season, but hundreds of Northern Gannets were still raising young on one of the islands. Other birds and mammals seen on the trip were European Oystercatchers, Herring Gulls, Gray Seals, European Shags and a single Peregrine Falcon.