Urban Hawks

December 10, 2006December 17, 2020927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks, St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

A December Sunday in Central Park

I entered the park at 103rd and Central Park West.

The Pool and the Loch were quiet, but there was noise to the south, so I went to the north edge of the North Meadow. Two adult hawks appeared. One went north out of sight and the other circled overhead.

This hawk may be the St. John the Divine female, but I can’t be certain. It flew south down to about 90th.

The hawk moved from tree to tree, not settling in for more than ten minutes per branch.

Blue Jays were making it difficult to find peace and quiet. The hawk looked to be hunting rodents along the west park wall, so I left to avoid interfering.

I walked along the Reservoir, through the Pinetum, and down the Locust Grove. In the Locust there were a number of squirrels making alarm calls. Fifty feet away in a tree on the Great Lawn was the cause, Pale Male.

He had been in the same tree for most of the afternoon.

Before moving to another tree that had the last bit of sunlight.

Lola was in her usual spot on the Beresford.

December 9, 2006December 25, 2020Eagles, Falcons, Hawks and Osprey, Other Birds, Other Red-tailed Hawks

Not What I Was Looking For…

I went into Central Park on Saturday hoping to find a Cooper’s Hawk, take a few pictures of Pale Male and then go off to the Monk Parakeets on Amsterdam Avenue.

As often happens when birding, I ended up with a different set of observations.

This American Kestrel was on the Met. I missed the Cooper’s Hawk, which I found out from other birders had spent an hour in the Tupelo tree in the Ramble.

The Reservoir had a number of ducks, including two pairs of Hooded Mergansers.

I then went off to 103rd and Amsterdam. No sign of the Parakeets, who seem to have completed their nest/roost. I suspect that they’ll be harder to spot now, since they’re going to spend more time exploring the neighborhood now that the nest is done.

Having struck out with the Parakeets, I went to the The Pool and the Loch in Central Park. The Pool was quiet and partially frozen over. In the Loch, I heard a group of Blue Jays. They were aggressively after this juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. There are a number of young hawks in the city this fall. One is in Tompkins Square Park, which someone has given a very complicated Myspace page.

This young hawk moved from tree to tree moving west to the Pond and then up to the Great Hill. It made a number of half hearted hunting attempts along the way.

Good luck making it through your first winter.

December 6, 2006December 25, 2020Other Birds

East vs. West, Where Did The Amsterdam Monks Come From?

Where did the Monk Parakeets on Amsterdam Avenue come from? Neither are banded, so they probably came from a wild colony in either New Jersey or Brooklyn.

The closest colony to Amsterdam Avenue, is in Edgewater, New Jersey. If a bird flew directly across the Hudson River it would arrive at around 138th and Riverside Drive going over the water for about a mile. (One of the unanswered question is do Monk Parakeets fly over large bodies of water?)

The nearest Brooklyn nest is about 8 miles away in Red Hook Park.

Monk Parakeets were seen in Central Park at various times over the last two years (see NYC Bird Report for details.) There have also been a number of reports from Riverside Drive this summer.

103rd Street is a great gateway between Central Park and Riverside Drive. Two blocks of 103rd are a pedestrian walkway through the grounds of the Fredrick Douglas Houses. It is also south of the 113th Street Cathedral Red-tails and north of the 96th and Broadway American Kestrels, so it may be a safe street for a Parakeet. Look it up on Google Maps. Or better yet, use Steve Baldwin’s map of Brooklyn and New Jersey Parrots and scroll up and zoom into Amsterdam and 103rd, after selecting Hybrid mode to get a sense of the surroundings.

So, did these two come from New Jersey? Did the Riverside Monk meet up with the Central Park Monk? Who knows.

December 3, 2006December 25, 2020Other Birds

Sunday Monks

I spent Sunday morning with the two Monks of Amsterdam Avenue.

The nest is under the air conditioner on the top floor.

The nest with the Monk’s fire escape perch on the left.

At times one would sing loudly while the other went to break a branch. It seemed that the louder and longer the song, the longer the branch that was brought back. Anyone want a free Ph.D. thesis idea?

By the time I left they had started an arch over the nest.

Periodically, the pair would stop and cuddle.

December 2, 2006December 25, 2020Other Birds

Monk Parakeets

Just before Thanksgiving, Marie Winn posted an article detailing the discovery of Monk Parakeets on Amsterdam Avenue by Rebekah Creshkoff. Donna Browne followed up with pictures and a few reports on her blog last week.

Brooklyn has had Monk Parakeets (aka, Quaker Parakeets, Myiopsitta monachus) for decades. Steve Baldwin’s website, www.brooklynparrots.com documents their history in the city.

Monk Parakeets are native to South America, and there feral populations in North America are controversial. A good discussion of the issues can be found at the Institute for Biological Invasions.

I arrived around 11:30 to find lots of nest building activity taking place. The nest is below a window air conditioner and is occupied by a pair of Monk Parakeets.

There is a fire escape a few feet away and the birds stop there on their way into the nest.

A great number of tree branches were broken off and taken to the nest.

Monk Parakeets are the only parrots that build woven nests with branches.

This was no casual nest building, but a full scale project

For about fifteen minutes the nest building was interrupted for berry picking.

This was a neat discovery. The berry was picked from the tree by the stem and then eaten

A brief rest before going back to nest building.

Taking another break from nest building. (By the way, don’t worry about these Parakeets this winter. There is a feral population of Monk Parakeets in Chicago!)

November 26, 2006December 20, 2020Eagles, Falcons, Hawks and Osprey, Other Red-tailed Hawks, Southern Central Park Red-tailed Hawks

Highbridge Park, Broadway Bridge and Columbus Circle

James O’Brien (yojimbot.blogspot.com) hosted a Harlem and Washington Heights bird watching walk on Sunday.

From his 145th Street apartment, we could see this Red-tailed Hawk on an apartment building to the south, who…

We walked through Highbridge park on the upper path. We saw a Red-tail or two in the distance but unlike our previous trip, no Cooper’s Hawks or American Kestrels.

We then took a brief subway ride to Broadway Bridge, which is a car and subway draw bridge at the upper end of Manhattan. The bridge is home to two Peregrine Falcons.

Just after we arrived the pair of Peregrine Falcons hassled a Red-tailed Hawk perched on top of an apartment building just east of the Marble Hill train station. This hawk may be one of the Inwood Hill Park Red-tails.

The Red-tailed Hawk did all it could to puff up and look as big possible.

Soon the Peregrines moved out of sight to the north.

The Red-tail reappeared from the southeast before flying out of sight. For a period of time it appeared to have a smaller bird pursuing it, possibly a Kestrel.

On my way home, I got off the 1 train at Columbus Circle and looked for the Central Park South hawks. One of them was on a building between 8th and 9th Avenues on 58th Street.