I finally got up to CCNY to find two hawks hanging out and not brooding. What was interesting was one was young, less than a year old, with a brown tail. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this nest in 2017 or if we’ll need to wait until 2018?
I explored the SE section of Central Park on Saturday. My first stop was The Pond, where right next to the Plaza Hotel some fun birds for the winter are a Wood Duck, Northern Pintail, and a Great Blue Heron. Then it was off to see how the Red-headed Woodpecker was doing. While I was on my way, I spotted a young Red-tailed hawk. A nice afternoon of birding.
I went down to City Hall Park to look for the Western Tanager. I saw brief glimpses of it, but also got to see two Peregrine Falcons chase a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. Here’s a few pictures of the Red-tailed Hawk.
I got a text from Ranger Rob Mastrianni today saying that the J. Hood Wright Park nest had four eyasses in their nest. That’s very, very rare. So, I took the A train up to 175th Street and took a look this evening. I got to see all four of them. It’s a good thing I went today, since one of them looks ready to leave nest.
I love these surprises. When the eyasses were younger most folks could only tell that there were one or two eyasses on the nest.
As many of you know, a female hawk died in the Chinatown/City Hall area earlier this season. The necropsy results for the bird has come back, with a verdict of “Poisoning – Anticoagulant rodenticide”. Laura Goggin reports on her blog that the male has found a new mate but poisoning continues near where the pair have decided to nest. This means we could easily have another hawk death, just like the first if no action is taken.
Please take a few minutes to read Laura’s latest report and if you have time write a polite letter to the City Council member for the area. Details are on Laura’s blog.
Central Park has a new nest at 8 East 96th Street, on the 11th Floor, on an air conditioner in the second window from Fifth Avenue. It’s technically not in the park but outside it by about 100 yards. This pair had laid an egg on 98th Street earlier in the season, and I had given up on them, assuming they were too inexperienced to get their act together this year. So, news of the new location via the NYU nest chat room community was a great surprise.
