Urban Hawks

March 4, 2011December 19, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Pale Male and Mate Late On Friday

I got to watch Pale Male and his new mate go to roost on Friday. They choose different trees near the East Drive.

One of the funny things about hawk watching is explaining to tourists that hawks don’t live in their nests like Monk Parakeets, but that they perch and roost all over their territory when not actually using the nest to raise offspring. I think anyone who watches Pale Male has repeated this explanation thousands of times.

In the video Pale Male is at the bottom of the screen, and his mate above. The shots in the tree are all of the female.

March 3, 2011December 25, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Quiet Afternoon

These photographs are from Sunday. I’ve been too busy to post them earlier. It was a relaxed afternoon, with Pale Male on his nest and his new mate on a nearby building.

February 26, 2011December 17, 2020Owls

Owl Watching Done Correctly

On Saturday, a group of bird watchers stood carefully across the road from the roost and observed the park’s Eastern Screech-Owl. The group was wonderfully handled by a NYC Urban Park Ranger. They kept their distance from the owl, were quiet and didn’t disturb her in the least. Her ears stayed flat the whole time the group watched them.

A few hearty souls quietly followed her after fly out and were rewarded by getting to see her preen and call.

February 26, 2011December 25, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks

Plat Du Jour

The Plat Du Jour Saturday afternoon was squirrel. Pale Male caught it next just inside the park opposite the nest building. He went to about five different spots to eat it. While eating he called to his new mate, so he could share, but she never came to eat “seconds”.

February 23, 2011December 21, 2020Owls

Calling Continues

The North Woods Eastern Screech-Owl continued her calling this evening. She ventured up to the Great Lawn to advertise her availability.

Before fly out she did some grooming, and there were a few frames of video that clearly showed she is banded.

While she is doing all of this calling, I certainly hope Dr. Robert DeCandido does not lead an “Owl Tour” and play his Screech-Owl tapes. She certainly doesn’t need to be confused by Birding Bob as she looks for a mate.

February 22, 2011December 17, 2020Owls

Eastern Screech-Owl

First, apologies for anthropomorphizing in my last post and saying the owl in the North Woods was lonely. She’s clearly just advertising her availability. Calling her lonely is just me projecting my concern that she won’t be able to find a mate.

Last night she called at least three hours. I gave up watching her at that point, as my feet were near frozen! She called constantly pausing between calls from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. She’s clearly making sure any nearby male will find her!

For those who don’t know the history of Eastern Screech-Owls in Central Park, they were reintroduced into the park about ten years ago. The program didn’t result in reestablishing a self sustaining population. Deaths due to car traffic may have tipped that balance against the owls, but there were other factors as well, poisons, geographic isolation, cavity contention with squirrels and other birds, etc.

So, Central Park now has an owl who has a low chance of finding a mate. Moving her would be politically difficult and introducing a mate would just perpetuate an unproductive situation even longer.

That said, I will miss watching owls raise their offspring in the park.