Today, I got to see lots of action from hawks building a nest on the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. When I arrived the male had just brought a rodent to the female of the pair on the very top of the hotel. They moved to the 37th Floor of the Trump Parc building and the male left leaving the female. She coughed up a casting and then ate the rodent.

While she was eating, the male when out and got a branch and brought it to the nest. I left the area and explored the park for a few hours.

When I returned, I saw the male in a low branch just inside the park at the southeast corner entrance to the park. He caught a rodent and then flew to a tree in Hallett Sanctuary where he ate. Then he returned to the same tree he had been hunting in earlier.

In NYC, mid-March is nest building and egg laying season. Today, I saw a Red-tailed Hawk visit a window ledge on the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Central Park South and Sixth Avenue. The ledge had twigs, but wasn’t a fully built nest.

This may be the same pair that build a poorly designed nest on the St. Regis where they then laid eggs and lost them last year. That pair also brought sticks to a window at the Peninsula Hotel, last year. If this is the same pair, they sure do love expensive hotel room windows!

The window is above a shield flanked by two cherubs. Pale Male and Octavia’s nest also has two cherubs.

I’ve been getting messages on Facebook from an employee of the St. Regis Hotel about a hawk attempting to nest on the building. It seemed like an early attempt by a young pair, and all signs were that they weren’t going to nest. An egg abandoned on a terrace, a poorly built nest, etc. So, when I was told, a hawks was sitting on the poorly built nest, I was skeptical.

So, much to my surprise on my way home on Friday, I saw a hawk apparently brooding on the nest that had been constructed in an oval window in the top, left corner of the façade that faces Fifth Avenue.

Update: I received word that later on Friday, it looks like the nest failed, with an egg being found on a terrace a few floors down. Establishing a new nest can be difficult. I’ll know more in a few days.

While walking through Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan (59th and Fifth), I heard the male crying that he had food.  I couldn’t find him, but heard him on the The Plaza Hotel.  He went down 58th and around the corner down Fifth, circling before landing on the roof of Bergdorf Goodman’s.  He then circled and circled before landing on a very high building roof at 55th and Fifth.  He left the pigeon there before spending about ten minutes circling 9 West 57th.

I haven’t seen the female for about a week.  Where, oh where is the nest!

There have been hawks for years around Central Park South.  They’ve nested on the Trump Parc building and 888 Seventh Avenue with success.  Over the last few years, the Crown Building and the Plaza Hotel a bit further east have been where we thought there might be nests, but haven’t been sure.

Today, I caught up with the current pair.  I heard the male, who looks young, cry out the “Honey, I have leftovers” call.  (She never responded.)  With the city being so quiet, I was able to find him on a third floor window of The Plaza Hotel.  He finished eating, and then started to attack his own reflection in the window, before getting caught in some pigeon spikes and then flying off.

He then made a number of loops around Grand Army Plaza, and perched on The Crown Building, the building at 58th and Fifth that has the Bergdorf’s Mens Store, and 9 West 57th.  The female was perched there.  They both took off, but returned to 9 West 57th and copulated.

Like the last few years, no clue about the possible nest location.

On Wednesday evening a hawk was on the NE flagpole of the Plaza Hotel.  I’ve been seeing this hawk a great deal recently, but other than seeing it around The Pond I don’t know much about it.