The day started badly when I got a faceful of water when a van drove through a pothole as I stood nearby at the crosswalk, but after that it got a lot better. I arrived at the office to find my new camera lens had been delivered. Then around 2:30 I noticed that the sun was breaking out. By 4:00 I could barely stand it and out the door I went.
Trucking down 113th St. at 4:05 I found that the hawk nest at the east end of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was occupied.
Brown shoulders. It's Isolde.
I wandered up and down the sidewalk along 113th St for five minutes, checking where the sight lines were best. Since Isolde was hunkered down, some 50-60 feet from the corner was the best spot. Closer to the corner, St. Andrew's head gets in the way.
But what about from Morningside Drive?
Yep, the spot right next to the lightpost by the 112th St. park overlook remains a good spot to view the south side of the nest. And since there's no foliage on the trees yet, even the overlook itself offers a decent view.
Gosh, here it's 4:30 already and Isolde is still in the nest. Wow, could that be meaningful? I mean, I thought it would be the start of April before egg-laying time, but perhaps I should check Lincoln's Pale Male stats page to see when the Fifth Ave. female normally produces her first egg. Hmmm, apparently March 5 last year. Double hmmm.
Five-ten minutes later Isolde's still up there but still no sign of her mate Tristan. I wander into Morningside Park, mosey up to the new dog run and then back, checking the treetops nearby and also doublechecking whether there are any decent sightlines of the nest from in the park. No, neither.
About 4:45 I'm back on the 112th St. overlook. Isolde's still in the nest, and I'm thinking it's time to get back over to work and figure out that Java KeyListener problem. I give it a few minutes then as I'm preparing to leave I turn around -- Tristan's perched in a tree about 50 feet away. Sneaky as always.
He works out a few kinks.
But stays where he is, looking around.
Not even a squirrel apparently uncognizant of possible death perched nearby gains his attention for more than a moment.
He looks up toward the nest. Did his honey call?
More stretching. Is he getting ready to leave.
Apparently not. Just going to scratch a bit and sit here and observe the world go by.
It's after 5:00 and I really ought to leave. But I end up chatting with a passer-by for awhile. He's observed raptors in the past on the scaffolding at the other end of the cathedral and swears they were hawks. He's also got a buddy who lives a couple blocks south on 108th St. and who has a pigeon coop. his buddy knows all about the neighborhood raptors.
It's well after 5:00 now. Tristan's still in the tree and Isolde's still in the nest.
I finally exit the scene close to 5:20.
Jim O. e-mails later saying he came by not long after and saw one of the hawks had moved to perch on Gabriel's horn atop the cathedral roof. he didn't see anyone in the nest, but as the light was getting dim he wasn't absolutely sure about that.
Oh, and about the camera lens. It's a Nikon 70-300mm as I've been using to take pix of hawks since last June, but the new one is the model with Nikon's whizbang VR vibration reduction and cost about three times what the old one did. The idea being to cut down on motion blur without resorting to using a tripod. Despite also weighing more than the old lens, early results look very positive.
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