10/1, Hawkwatching

After the falconry show at the north end of Central Park on Sunday, I headed down the loop to see if I could find Palemale or Lola. As it turned out, the "hawkarazzi" were already hanging about beneath a tree near Cleopatra's Needle with lenses trained on Palemale. I arrived at about 4:00 but because I started from a bad angle it was actually five minutes before I spotted him. Ooops.

Within 10 minutes Palemale shifted to another tree 100 feet or so north. Photographers followed along. And of course, if a group of people hang about behaving like they're watching something, passers-by will ask what's up. Since the new tree had no green foliage left, all got an easy look.

About 20 minutues later a jay also showed up and hopped about the same tree, jeering constantly to get Palemale to go away. Palemale wasn't having any of it and was still sitting in the same spot when the jay gave up. But at about 4:45, Palemale took off to the northeast, disappearing into the trees just behind the Met. At the north end of the Met, I found Bruce already with camera trained on a building up at about 91st St. Apparently an intruder red-tail had been spotted in that area, and both Palemale and Lola were up there making sure it knew whose territory the location was. Those with good eyes (that's not me) would have gotten a quick glimpse of three hawks in the air.

Having settled the issue, Palemale and Lola headed south perhaps 10 minutes later and perched atop the "Oreo building". As they looked fairly settled, and were also some distance away, hawkwatchers began to drift away for the evening. I headed out at 5:15.

But one last glimpse of a hawk remained. Just before 6:00, as I was walking up the west side of the loop and just as I reached the service road at about 102nd St., I got a quick look at a red-tail passing overhead at tree-top level, flying west to east. Perhaps it was following the line of the Loch. That was my only view of that particular hawk, but it seems that a couple hours earlier Bruce had also seen a red-tail in that vicinity (actually about 300-400 yards east over the wildflower meadow). His report suggested that it might have been Isolde, the Cathedral hawks mom.