July 30, 2006

7/30, No-Luck Hawkwatching

There was no hawkwatching on Saturday because I had errands to run, and Sunday proved a bust. It was the first time I'd ventured over to the Cathedral/Morningside Park area this summer and not seen one of the Divine red-tails.

Sunday's attempts to locate the hawks began about 5:10 p.m., again following the route of working from the dog run in the north down to 110th St. in the south, and then back up to 116th St. Then repeat, inserting a short side-trip over to the northwest corner of Central Park. There were some interesting bird sounds at the start, with a jay calling out near the dog run and whatever the loud bird is that goes "wing wing wing wing wing". Also made the first sighting of the day of a mourning dove right then, and indeed there seemed to be too many small birds and squirrels on the ground then for there to also be a hawk around.

After that, well, there were constant sparrow chirps seemingly everywhere I went. (Well, not quite, maybe just half of the places.) But aside from the jay sounds at the start, there were never any other sounds suggestive of hawks. No robin alarms or catbird squawks, let alone red-tailed fledgling whining.

Just as I was getting ready to pack it in at 6:30 and head off for family dinner, I noticed a new water bird toward the back of Morningside Park's turtle pond. Checking on-line resources later indicated it was a black-crowned night heron in adult plumage.

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