Eurasian Eagle-Owl

On Sunday, I watched the Eurasian Eagle-Owl for a few hours after fly out at the Compost Heap. He made some loops around the area early on before settling into his favorite tree. He caught a rat late in the evening and ate it quickly on a pile of compost before returning to his favorite tree.

What’s Next At 927 Fifth Avenue?

The crowd that watched Pale Male, had an expression, “the regulars”. It meant the individuals who spent time day after day watching Pale Male, his mates and their offspring. This hard core group of “regulars” kept track of the hawks throughout the year. Over the years, this group become smaller as the nest became inactive and old timers passed away or moved out of New York.

Over the last three days, many of “the regulars” who are still with us, visited the hawk bench and remembered Pale Male. I’ve been by the bench twice and swapped stories and memories with some of the other “regulars”.

While we’ve been at the hawk bench, we’ve already seen Octavia, Pale Male’s last mate begin the next chapter in her life. On Wednesday, we saw her with other hawks. Octavia may already have found a new mate, possibly a young male. Hawks can quickly find a new mate and this might be the case here.

We’ll know for sure over the next few weeks.

It may be too late in the year for Octavia to nest this year. But it will be interesting to see if with a new mate, they rebuild the 927 Fifth Avenue nest or relocate it to a new location. We might not know until next year.

We also don’t know if Octavia is still able to have offspring. It was unclear if Pale Male was the reason they hadn’t brooded over the last few years. This is the second open question.

My hope is that we have offspring next year, using the old nest location. I suspect this is the hope of many of the other “regulars”.

Octavia leaving the Carlyle Hotel on Friday.

Flaco on Tuesday and Thursday

I had a chance to catch up with Flaco on both Tuesday and Thursday nights. He’s hunting up at the compost heap most nights now, skipping the construction site.

On Thursday, he flew right past me and caught a rat, which we heard squeal as it got caught. He caught it and continued flying, returning to the tree he had been perched in. He ate the rat on a low level branch. As a few of us photographed him, we watched the light change from Green to Yellow to Red as a stop light 100 feet away was the primary light source.