I haven’t been doing much hawk watching the last few weeks, but ran into Pale Male near the Three Bears statue south of the Met on Friday night. He loves to hunt there at dusk before going off to roost. I didn’t see him catch anything, but he was paying close attention to the rodents coming out for the evening.
Today, I caught up with one of two Red-shouldered Hawks that’s been in Central Park. This bird is in the same family, Buteo, as Red-tailed Hawks. We first saw the Red-shouldered Hawk at Turtle Pond. It then went just south of the Obelisk (a.k.a. Cleopatra’s Needle). After about twenty minutes it then went to Cedar Hill before we lost it. In searching for it we found Pale Male, America’s most famous Red-tailed Hawk. I’ve included him in the pictures so, you can compare these two species from the same family.
Hawks don’t spend much time on their nests outside of breading season, but they do make visits like one of the Fifth Avenue hawks did today. Later in the day, I saw a young hawk at 78th and Fifth on a communications dish above the French cultural center. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Pale Male and Octavia to kick the youngster out.
I first spotted Octavia (Pale Male’s mate) on top of one of Fifth Avenue’s ugliest buildings this afternoon, 1001 Fifth Avenue, “designed” if you can call it that, by the firm of Johnson/Burgee. She had the good taste to move to the Met’s SE corner, and then the NE corner before I lost her as she flew around 86th Street and the East Drive at dusk. I think she might have a roost somewhere a few blocks north of the Met.
I caught up with Pale Male just north of the Obelisk on Sunday, and then a young Cooper’s Hawk eating a bird a bit further north. Nice to see that are starting to get some visiting raptors to the park.
Today both Pale Male and Octavia were both at the northern reaches of their territory. Pale Male was on a building at 87th and Fifth, which has a nice view of the Reservoir and the birds migrating south. Today, that included a kettle of Broad-winged Hawks and two Bald Eagles. Octavia was up north as well and I found her perched on the north side of the Met. This northern area is full of food in the fall, with rodents eating apples near the Hamilton Statue, song birds that die due to collisions with the Temple of Dendur windows, and rodents on the Birdle Path south and east of the Reservoir.
