I’ve been troubled all week by the disappearance of the male from the St. John’s pair and the news of his replacement by a younger hawk. It finally sunk in, when I got to see the new St. John the Divine male this afternoon.
The male in different light. It’s going to take some practice to tell the male and the female apart.
Last Thursday, a Morningside Park dog walker, Stephen Jarossy, saw a Red-tailed Hawk with wing problems in the park. He went home to drop off his dog and get a cardboard box, but when he returned he could not rediscover the injured hawk.
He emailed me on Friday, but I got it too late to help him during the day. When I received it that evening, I forwarded it to the Urban Park Rangers, who sent two rangers to look for the injured hawk on Saturday. Bobby Horvath, the rehabber who confirmed with Stephen that he did indeed see an injured hawk. Two avid St. John the Divine hawk watchers and bloggers, James O’Brien (yojimbot.blogspot.com) and Robert Schmunk (bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com), also searched the park for the hawk over the weekend.
On Sunday, it became clear that the male hawk of the Cathedral pair was missing. On Monday, Robert saw two adult hawks on the Cathedral, but couldn’t I.D. them. On Wednesday, he could. There was a new, much darker male, next to the adult female of the Cathedral pair.
This confirmed for us that something catastrophic had happened to the female’s old mate. It was unclear if he had died or had been taken into someone’s care. Hopefully, he is with a rehabber, although calls to local facilities have not given us any good news. Birds have a high mortality rate, and chances are that the male has died, although we all hope to be proven wrong.
Tonight, I got up to the park to watch the adult female go to sleep in one of her favorite roost trees. No sign of her new suitor.
The Cathedral of St. John as started a waterproofing project and put up scaffolding all around the nest. While the work will be away from the nest, it is close by. The timing of this project couldn’t be worse, with egg laying in mid-March and hatching in April. It will be interesting to watch this situation develop. I’m afraid that the hawks might end up attaching workers if they get too close to an active nest later in the Spring.
James O’Brien has more photographs of the St. John’s scaffolding, as well as news of similar repairs on Riverside Church on his blog.
I’ve also gotten news of the 888 Seventh Avenue nest from Brett Odom, who has a view of the nest from his office.
“I just wanted to let you know that while I have not witnessed any copulation activities between Junior and Charlotte. I can confirm that they have greatly increased their visits to the 888 7th Ave. nest site. Until the last several days I could go weeks between sightings, but recently I have seen them visit the nest several times a day.”
On Saturday, I started birding at the Long-eared Owls. Both were visible.
I then when north, trying to do a practice run for the Central Park Bird Count. On my way north I found an adult Red-tailed Hawk that was having fun scaring the hundreds of Grackles north of the Reservoir.
As I kept track of the Red-tail, I ran into a Screech-Owl. Needless to say, I was side-tracked by the owl for the rest of the afternoon.
Both the male and female of the St. John the Divine Red-tailed Hawk pair kept an eye on the Falconry Extravaganza (a misnomer, since it is an educational event, rather than a true falconry event) on Sunday in the park. Here are pictures of the female keeping watch.
I found one of the St. John the Divine fledglings in the southern section of Morningside Park on early Saturday afternoon. The fledgling did some practice hunting, but didn’t catch anything while I was there.
