When I left my apartment today just after 3:00, I headed almost straight to the cathedral. First I swung by West 103rd St. to check on the monk parakeets and was startled to see that their nest was essentially destroyed. I wondered if there'd been a problem because of the pigeon that I saw inside a couple days ago. It didn't look like human intervention, as the "storage bin" sticks were all still in their alcove. Picked up a latte at 112th St and finally reached the cathedral at 3:30. From West 113th St., it looked like the red-tailed hawk nest was empty. Drat. Looks like Isolde was broody yesterday rather than brooding.
I headed around the corner to see if the other good viewing point would reveal any nest residents and found Bruce just getting ready to leave. He'd been there awhile and had some nice pictures of hawks entering and exiting the nest; they'd flown off around 3:00 or so. He also had been by the parakeet nest and had pictures of the parakeets deconstructing their own home, apparently getting ready to build a structure more fit for spring. So check his blog for pix. Jim's too as he was there for a while also.
We split up, with Bruce heading toward Midtown to check on Junior and Charlotte's new nest site and me into the north end of Central Park to see if Tristan or Isolde was about hunting. No luck for me. North Woods, Great Hill, Ravine, Fort Clinton, Nutter's Battery and back, no hawks in sight. But I did spend 10-15 minutes by the seed log in the Ravine.
There was the shy tufted titmouse, whom I hadn't noticed before.
Loads of white-throated sparrows.
They pretty much ran the place except when the squirrels moved in.
Of course there was a cardinal couple.
The male looked exceptionally dashing in his black mask.
And then a red-bellied woodpecker put in appearance.
Back in Morningside Park just before 5:00, I spotted someone hawk-like circling low over the Washington and Lafayette Monument at the junction of Manhattan Ave., Morningside Ave., and 113th St. Getting close I found Isolde perched on a water tower just down 113th St. Soon after I headed uphill so that I had a better view of the water tower, Isolde took off to the east and flew past the Wadleigh School tower. Hey, is someone else already up there?
Before coming back around to perch atop the school. Ah-hah, Tristan's there too.
I watched them shuffle positions a bit, and then headed over that direction to see if I get any pix from below.
When I got there, Isolde bfiefly flew off only to return and perch on the roof.
From the look of the roof, either the hawks or some other birds have been perching up there a lot.
At 5:30, Isolde took off the the south.
As I watched her, Tristan also flew off. Hmmm, perhaps one or both was headed toward the nest. It is getting close to sunset and time for me to back that way anyway. But when I reached Morningside Drive, there was no sign of a hawk around the nest. Looking back east, it appeared that one of the hawks had returned to the Wadleigh School perch and remained there until 6:00.
Around 6:10, still no activity around the nest. Light at ground level was about shot but there was still too much light in the sky to observe the start of the lunar eclipse. Time to vacate.
After 7:00, looking out my sister's east facing windows, we did watch the moon slowly re-appear from its passage Earth's shadow.
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