Urban Hawks

March 2, 2008December 21, 2020Owls

Sunday, 3-2-08

Well, he did a good job trying to give us the slip tonight, but we ended up finding him about ten minutes after the fly out. There’s a chance he also led us to another cavity…

March 1, 2008December 21, 2020Owls

Saturday, 3-1-08

Except for a visit by a juvenile Red-tail with a Squirrel, tonight was the same as the last few nights. One owl out after it gets very dark. Here are tonight’s photographs.

March 1, 2008December 23, 2020St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

I’ve been troubled all week by the disappearance of the male from the St. John’s pair and the news of his replacement by a younger hawk. It finally sunk in, when I got to see the new St. John the Divine male this afternoon.

The new male on the left and our successful mother on the right, on a window of St. Luke’s Hospital’s Plant building.

He has a very light eye color and a cleaner white breast color compared to the female.

Crows have made a comeback this year in Morningside Park. There are now about six.

The female chased three European Starlings off of the Plant Building and caught one in mid-air.

The male on the Wadleigh school building.

Both hawks visited the nest. The male is visible on the right.

The female exits on the left. The male follows her within a minute.

The male in different light. It’s going to take some practice to tell the male and the female apart.

March 1, 2008December 23, 2020Tompkins Square Red-tailed Hawks

Nesting On The Lower East Side

I went down to see how the nest was doing on Houston Street, on Saturday. It is starting to look like a real nest, so I think we can definitely call this Manhattan Nest No. 7. I didn’t see either hawk, but a photographer and a local confirmed nest building activity earlier in the day. Rumor has it that one of the hawks is banded.

February 28, 2008December 23, 2020St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

Difficult News

Last Thursday, a Morningside Park dog walker, Stephen Jarossy, saw a Red-tailed Hawk with wing problems in the park. He went home to drop off his dog and get a cardboard box, but when he returned he could not rediscover the injured hawk.

He emailed me on Friday, but I got it too late to help him during the day. When I received it that evening, I forwarded it to the Urban Park Rangers, who sent two rangers to look for the injured hawk on Saturday. Bobby Horvath, the rehabber who confirmed with Stephen that he did indeed see an injured hawk. Two avid St. John the Divine hawk watchers and bloggers, James O’Brien (yojimbot.blogspot.com) and Robert Schmunk (bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com), also searched the park for the hawk over the weekend.

On Sunday, it became clear that the male hawk of the Cathedral pair was missing. On Monday, Robert saw two adult hawks on the Cathedral, but couldn’t I.D. them. On Wednesday, he could. There was a new, much darker male, next to the adult female of the Cathedral pair.

This confirmed for us that something catastrophic had happened to the female’s old mate. It was unclear if he had died or had been taken into someone’s care. Hopefully, he is with a rehabber, although calls to local facilities have not given us any good news. Birds have a high mortality rate, and chances are that the male has died, although we all hope to be proven wrong.

Tonight, I got up to the park to watch the adult female go to sleep in one of her favorite roost trees. No sign of her new suitor.