Owls

Sunday, 3-9-08

I arrived to find a tree and a very large limb of an adjacent tree had fallen down near the Owls roost tree.  The trees had taken down the Y shaped tree, we had taken to calling the sex tree, since it was the site of many copulations.

Luckily, there was no sign of any injured animals or birds.  The tree that lost a large limb, is home to at least five raccoons.  We saw four of them leave other parts of the tree this evening.  Hopefully, we just missed seeing the others.

Fly out ended up being fairly standard, although we lost the owl at first, we were able rediscover him and track the owl for about ten minutes.

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Tompkins Square Red-tailed Hawks

Lower East Side On A Rainy Saturday

There was about an hour in the morning to go hawk watching on the Lower East Side.  The nest is moving along.  The couple looks young, so we should be prepared for this first attempt not to be successful.

These hawks are looking much darker than usual, since they’re wet.

One hawk was on a building west of the school when I arrived.
The other was on a tree across the street.
Then one was on the nest for about five minutes.
Before flying off.  Both birds ended up in the same tree.
One had a twig and took it to the nest and the other…
…went to a lamppost.
On the air conditioner to the left of the nest, they’ve built a little landing platform.
They sometimes land there, and then fly over to the real nest.
The hawk on the lamppost, then goes to a drainpipe on at the top of the school.  About 200 pigeons changed places!
The other hawk is weaving a plastic bag into the nest.
Good luck first timers!