Category: Other Red-tailed Hawks

Eagles, 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…
…then flew southwest out of sight.
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.

Soon a second hawk appeared and both of them flew around Columbus Circle.
They both landed on a corner of the Time Warner building.
They flew between the Time Warner, Trump International and the new Zeckendorf buildings.
All in all, it was a great day for raptor watching.
927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks, Other Red-tailed Hawks

Marathon Sunday

On Marathon Sunday, I came into a park full of runners.  The marathon route goes right through Pale Male and Lola’s territory.

I walked around the Great Lawn and saw a hawk skim just above ground level from the center of the lawn to the eastern edge.  The hawk grabbed a small bird and then jumped into a low branch of a small tree between two baseball diamonds.  The bird was the immature hawk that Lola has been tolerating and to some observers, has even been playing with.

The immature Red-tailed Hawk just after catching a bird on the east side of the Great Lawn.
Note the immature’s stripped tail rather than a mature’s solid red tail.
The immature also has a very light eye color, which will darken over time.
Just after the immature Red-tailed Hawk finished eating, Pale Male came in to chase it away.
Pale Male landed in a tree on the west side of the Great Lawn and the immature hawk went northwest out of sight.
Pale Male preens his feathers.
The fluffed up look of a cold day.
After looking for the immature hawks perch without success, I returned to the Great Lawn to discover Pale Male had moved to the East Pinetum.
Were he settled into a tree that was to be his roost for the evening.
927 5th Avenue Red-tailed Hawks, Other Red-tailed Hawks, Southern Central Park Red-tailed Hawks, St. John/Columbia Red-tailed Hawks

Fordham Hawks make the tree to building nest move

Rob Jett reports on his excellent The City Birder blog, that the Fordham Campus Red-tailed Hawks have made the move from tree nesting to building nesting.

This makes the fourth New York City building nest I’ve heard reports of:

Fifth Avenue
Bronx Fire Escape (2004) (Daily News, NYC DEP)
Central Park South
Fordham Campus

Update: I forgot about the St. John the Divine (200?-?) nest, which would make five.  If you know of other building nests in NYC, please leave a comment.

Other Red-tailed Hawks

East Harlem Red-Tailed Hawks

While birding on the shore of the Harlem Meer in Central Park, I saw a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks flying over East Harlem on Sunday afternoon.  They flew progressively higher until I lost sight of them.  They appeared to be flying over the housing developments that are bounded by Lenox Avenue, 1st Avenue, 112th and 115th Streets. 

When I got home, I looked up the area on Google Earth and found that this is a strip of green that runs to the East River with Wards Island/Randalls Island across the river.  What a great territory that would make for a Red-tailed Hawk pair.  Especially if it also included Marcus Garvey Memorial Park and the area around the 125th Street Metro North Station.

Or is this just the eastern territory of a Morningside Park Red-tailed Hawk pair?  Or the northern territory of a Central Park North Meadow pair?

Harlem’s Red-tailed population confuses the heck out of me!

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