Urban Hawks

May 24, 2007December 22, 2020Other Red-tailed Hawks

Astoria Park, Queens, New York

On Thursday, I followed up on a report from Jules Corkery (via Marie Winn’s blog) of a new Red-tailed Hawk nest in Astoria Park, on the Triborough Bridge. I can confirm that there are two photogenic eyasses at the site.

The nest is located on the southern side of the Astoria portion of the bridge. The nest is easily accessible via public transportation. Astoria Park site is a short walk from the second to the last stop on the N/W subway line. Except for the stairs up and down the elevated line, it is a nice flat six block walk.

Take the N or W to the Astoria Blvd. stop, exit to Hoyt Avenue South and walk towards the river. At 21st Street is the entrance to Astoria Park, walk in and go to the middle of the tennis courts. Look over to the bridge. You’ll see a large concrete structure that anchors the suspension cables. On the right corner below the roadway you’ll see the nest on a large drain pipe.

When I first arrived at the nest, I went right under it. Within ten minutes of photographing the nest, a Police Officer threatened to give me a summonses for taking pictures. Under current regulations while on MTA Bridge property, photography is prohibited. I was very near the nest, so I may have been on MTA property when I was threatened with a summons.

However, it seems that photographing the bridge from public property is perfectly legal, so taking pictures from within Astoria Park would be perfectly fine.

The ACLU has a suit against the city pending about ambiguous policies toward photographers. It seems that the department has ambiguous policies which led to the accidental harassment of photographers. I think my situation was similar to the problems birders have been having with scopes on tripods in city parks. It’s too bad well meaning Police Officers are stepping over the line, due to ambiguous policies and poor training.

I’m going to be careful while in Astoria and keep my 500mm lens out of sight of the guard station. I understand the paranoia in these post 9/11 times, but I thought we lived in the USA and not the old USSR!

The nest is next to a pigeon roost. Imagine your meals flying by every few minute!

The adult female flies off toward the Astoria Park track.

She’s impressive. Note the light color of her eyes.

She does some half-hearted hunting on the underside of the bridge.

She scrapes her beak on a railing when she returns.

She flies off to a stadium light on the other side of the track.

May 23, 2007December 21, 2020Owls

Wednesday, May 23rd

Tonight, Jean and I were joined by another “Owl Tour”. By accident, we and some Robins led the group to the two adult owls in a Red Oak, where the owls had been last night.

They both flew out to the same northern tree as last night, and sang to each other. The songs were in two keys, one for each of them.

They made their way towards the “sex tree” but were chased by Robins much later into the night than usual. At some point the Robins gave up.

(There were Robin alarms from other trees south of the adults. It would be nice to find one of the rehabilitated young ones some night.)

May 23, 2007December 22, 2020St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

Brief Visit To The Cathedral

I had a late work meeting, so I could only spend about 30 minutes at the Cathedral. One of the parents was on the Archangel when I arrived, and was soon joined for a few minutes by the other parent. Their backs were turned to me, so it was hard to make a solid identification.

Then one of the eyasses decided to defecate and move around the nest for about five minutes. Other than these two events, the nest was quiet.

May 23, 2007December 28, 2020Red-tailed Hawk Nest Updates

Fledge Date Guesses for Manhattan

If you’ve been looking at the Queen’s Hawkcam, you’ll notice that the young are close to fledging. General wisdom is that it take between 42 and 46 days for a hawk to fledge. I’ve tried to take a guess at what I think the Manhattan hatch dates were and calculated the approximate fledge dates. Of course, the normal “Your mileage may vary” disclaimer applies here.

	Eyasses	Hatch (Best Guess)	+42	+46
Queens Nestcam	2	4/13	5/25	5/29
Highbridge	3	4/17	5/29	6/2
Inwood Hill	2	4/20	6/1	6/5
St. John	3	4/27	6/8	6/12
888 7th Avenue	1	4/29	6/10	6/14

One thing I’m sure of however, is that I need to spend this Memorial Day weekend visiting Highbridge and Inwood Hill Park before it’s too late!

May 22, 2007December 22, 2020St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

Two or Three

The evening started quietly with the mother on the Archangel, and the nest quiet. Then the father came in and did a feeding with food which was already in the nest. Afterwards the eyasses were full of activity, and at one point it looked like we had three babies in the nest. We’ll know for sure in a few days.

Although this looks dignified, the eyasses don’t have much motor control yet and fall down a lot. They’re still at the toddler stage.

Three eyasses are visible. One flapping, one with its back to us behind the hand, and one on the right

The mother moves a little closer to the nest.

The father in his parking lot rodent hunting mode.

May 22, 2007December 15, 2020Owls

Tuesday, May 22nd

On news of the release of the three young owls back into the park, everyone from the core group of owl watchers came to watch the fly out.

It turned out to be an auditory rather than visual evening. The adult owls were not in the Willow this evening. We could hear groups of American Robins, crying in alarm and flying in and out of trees along the west drive.

When the branches were bare, it was easy to search for the owls in the twilight. Now that the trees have leafed out, the trees seem so much darker and dense. So tonight, I didn’t see a single owl perching.

Instead, we hear Robins and Owls. One owl made a soft song for about ten minutes. From this tree, we saw two owls fly out and fly into a tree further north. But the leaves were too dense for me to see anything once they landed again.

Eastern Screech-Owl watching may soon be coming to an end for this season.