Across the street from Zabar’s on the Upper West Side is an American Kestrel scrape. 

I was thrilled to find it because I was able to first identify the bird from two blocks away by looking at its silhouette and wing beat.  The Kestrel, a small falcon, then led me to its scrape (since Kestrel’s don’t build a “nest” but use a hollow, they’re called scrapes).

Most urban hawks and falcons that nest in the city do so near a park.  American Kestrel’s, however are our true urban birds not needing a park.  In New York City, they are everywhere often nesting, like this pair, just under a roof line behind a rusted out decorative eave molding.  They are all up and down Broadway on the west side.

I met James O’Brien up at Broadway Bridge to look at Peregrines and then go off to Inwood Hill Park.   We’re both doing our late winter/early spring check up on our favorite local raptor nests.

We found both Peregrines.  One on the stadium lights of a Columbia University playing field, and the other on the north tower of the bridge.

These two Cooper’s Hawks were both very vocal in the Loch on Friday.  It was the first time I had heard a Cooper’s Hawk.  I think the adult was telling the juvenile to “move along”.

A belated post of photographs from Sunday of a Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk.  In the field, we thought this was a Sharp-shinned Hawk.  But looking closely at the breast pattern and plain white belly, made me revise the I.D.  Accipiters are really tough to tell apart.