A few weeks ago, as part of the promotional efforts to support Marie Winn’s wonderful book, Central Park in the Dark, we went on a walk with Margot Adler from NPR. Today, Ms. Adler’s story about the book was broadcast on All Things Considered.
Tonight, started with an owl in the exact spot as last night. This never seems to happen, so we were all surprised. We got to see two owls in the roost tree and got to see some stretching. The robins gave the owls something of a break tonight.
They flyout was quick, with two owls going down to ground level quickly. Once stayed close by for about 20 minutes giving me great looks from close up. It then made its way south. A few calls were made. We’re beginning to wonder if the kids aren’t close to splitting up.
Tonight started slow. It took a great deal of effort to find one sleeping owl. The robins weren’t much help tonight.
After fly out, one went south along the creek and was mobbed by a few robins. It was easy to spot and gave us some great looks. While this was going on, two owls sang from the roost tree.
Later in the evening, two owls were spotted to the north, but we didn’t get any really good looks and certainly no photographs.
As this year’s Manhattan Red-tailed Hawk nesting season comes to an end, it must be said this seems to be the worst year for Red-tails in the borough in recent memory. It really was an "Annus Horribilis".
Here’s the current status of Manhattan’s known nesting pairs:
The father was recently picked up as well after being found grounded. He died this weekend from frounce, a disease picked up from eating infected pigeons.
The first to be picked up has been returned to Astoria Park, and is in the "foster care" of the Triborough Bridge parents. The parents have accepted the fledgling, but there is now a chance the bird has frounce. It is being monitored by two dedicated Astoria hawk watchers, Jules and Peter. (Update: 7-4-08, the Houston fledgling does have frounce, which was detected on 7-2-08. It took until 7-4-08 to find and capture the bird.)
The two other fledglings are still with the rehabilitator Bobby Horvath and are being treated for frounce. Their prognosis is good, but frounce can be a killer even with treatment. (Update: 7-2-08, Sad news, one of these two fledgling has died from frounce.)
So, it’s been a horrible year. We’ve had two adults die, and numerous eyasses and fledglings be poisoned, injured or infected.
I hadn’t been to Fort Tryon this season, so I thought it would be worth a look. I ended up getting drenched in a thunderstorm, but I did see one Red-tailed Hawk on a building bordering the park at 196th and Broadway. It was a second year hawk, with its tail feathers in molt. It had a few old stripped brown tail feathers and a few new red ones.
The Broadway Bridge Peregrine Falcon family can be difficult to watch, since the bridge has two towers. This makes it difficult to see everyone at once and figure out how many there are.
Luckily, after a rainstorm early Saturday evening all five could easily be counted and identified. While I was there one of the parents feed one of the youngsters. The parents don’t bring the fledglings their food, but instead make them chase them and make them catch the food in mid-flight. It’s amazing to watch. (The 1 train prevented me from taking photographs of the feeding unfortunately.)
