Urban Hawks

January 24, 2009December 24, 2020Other Red-tailed Hawks

Drinking Red-tailed Hawk

I’m back in New York and finally had a chance to visit Central Park today. Here are a few pictures of a young Red-tailed hawk taking a drink of water at one of the few ice free areas of the Lake today.

January 21, 2009December 24, 2020Extralimital, Other Birds

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

I got to add a few birds to my life list in St. John, including the Antillean Crested Hummingbird.

January 20, 2009December 24, 2020Extralimital

Reef Bay Trail, St. John VI

A large portion of St. John is a national park. The Reef Bay Trail in the park has been rated one of the ten best trails in the Caribbean. It’s a great deal of fun when you go on a guided Park Ranger tour. The Park Service arranges for transportation to the top of the trail, provides a guide to the bottom of the trail and arranges for a boat to pick you up at the bottom! No walking back uphill!

Spider webs were everywhere on the way down.

This plant can be used as a “Brillo pad”.

A few mushrooms. Termites take care of most of the decaying materials, so there weren’t that many mushrooms.

Waterfalls which had Petroglyphs below them.

The Petroglyphs were where bats appear at night to drink. It is believed that the islanders believed that the bats were angel like visitors.

Mongooses were introduced to the Island to control rats. However they are day hunters and ended up just being a second pest.

The Park Service has to control their population, along with other introduced mammals such as donkeys, goats and deer.

After slavery was abolished, steam power was introduced without much success.

Bats, the only native mammal on the island.

At the bottom of the trail is a Salt Pond…

If you bring a bathing suit, you can swim at the nice beach.

The boat that takes you back to the Park Visitor’s Center.

January 18, 2009December 24, 2020Extralimital, Other Birds

Brown Pelicans

St. John has a large population of Brown Pelicans, who fish close to the beaches. They’re fun to watch dive bombing for fish.

January 18, 2009December 24, 2020Extralimital, Other Birds

Magnificent Frigatebird

I spent an extended Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. While there I did some birding. A new life bird for me was the Magnificent Frigatebird. The males are all black, the females have a white chest, and the immature birds have a white head and chest.

January 11, 2009December 24, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks, Eagles, Falcons, Hawks and Osprey, Other Red-tailed Hawks

Central Park Hawks After The Snow

On Sunday, I spent the late afternoon looking for Long-eared Owls without success. But I did run into a few hawks.

On the Beresford Apartments, was Pale Male in the oval window, and Lola soaking up the sun on a south facing ledge.

This young hawk was in the Ramble making its way between the official and the not so official bird feeders looking for customers to eat.

This Sharp-shinned Hawk, with prey in talons, was being chased by a Red-tailed Hawk near 69th Street and the West Drive. The Sharp-shinned Hawk evaded the Red-tail and got away with its prey. Everything happened too fast for me to capture the action, but it reminded me that winter is the time to see lots of raptors in New York City.