Tompkins Square Red-tailed Hawks

Lower East Side On A Rainy Saturday

There was about an hour in the morning to go hawk watching on the Lower East Side.  The nest is moving along.  The couple looks young, so we should be prepared for this first attempt not to be successful.

These hawks are looking much darker than usual, since they’re wet.

One hawk was on a building west of the school when I arrived.
The other was on a tree across the street.
Then one was on the nest for about five minutes.
Before flying off.  Both birds ended up in the same tree.
One had a twig and took it to the nest and the other…
…went to a lamppost.
On the air conditioner to the left of the nest, they’ve built a little landing platform.
They sometimes land there, and then fly over to the real nest.
The hawk on the lamppost, then goes to a drainpipe on at the top of the school.  About 200 pigeons changed places!
The other hawk is weaving a plastic bag into the nest.
Good luck first timers!
Other Red-tailed Hawks

Eighth Manhattan Nest

Thanks to a report from Bill Amstutz, the eighth Manhattan Red-tailed Hawk nest has been found on Shepard Hall, up at City College.

James O’Brien confirmed the location of the nest today and has pictures on his blog.

Of the eight known nests in Manhattan, here’s what I know…

  • 888 Seventh Avenue, Lots of mating and twigging.
  • 5th Avenue, Looks good and keep your fingers crossed that the recent repairs corrected the problems with the nest.
  • St. John the Divine, New mate and Cathedral construction may cause problems.
  • Highbridge Park, Hawks sighted in area but old nest looks abandoned. There may be a new nest nearby.
  • Inwood Hill Park, New nest in older spot.  Looks great.
  • South Riverside Park, New nest with young parents.  Mixed chances but they seem to be doing well for beginners.
  • Houston Street, Nest just beginning to be worked on.  Time will tell.
  • Shepard Hall, City College, New nest.  Who knows.

In addition to these nests, there are rumors of three possible nest sites, two between the Southern Riverside Park nest and Inwood Hill Park nest along the Hudson, and one around 14th Street and the East River.  I hope we find them.

To a wonderful spring!

Inwood Hill Park Red-tailed Hawks

New Nest At Inwood Hill

James and I went up to the old nest at Inwood Hill and it looked like it hadn’t been touched since last year.  We’d find out later in the afternoon, why!

Failing to find any Red-tailed Hawks, we went to the outlook that has a view up and down the Hudson River. There we found a Red-tailed Hawk hovering and behaving like an Osprey.

The wind was bitterly cold, so we started to walk down to exit the park.  The path we had come up was icy, so we took the alternate path back down.  Halfway down, we discovered the female hawk about 50 feet from a new nest.
The female
Another angle of the female
The male came with food and cried for his mate to join him.
He kept calling but she wasn’t interested.
He flew with the prey around her and then landed on a tree on the other side of the ravine.
She still wasn’t interested so he went to the new nest.  It’s in Tulip Tree again.
She still didn’t join him.  The sun was setting, so we exited the park.  It should be a fun spring up at Inwood.  The new nest doesn’t require walking up any hills to watch!