Not much to report lately, as work, weather and other reasons prevented me from visiting the Cathedral most of the week to see if the hawks were about. Today there was no sign of activity between 5:50 and 6:25.
So instead of a nest report, something a bit more... plural. I was updating the links at the left side of the page a few days ago, and decided to add a bunch of local raptor links, all of which so far are nestcam websites. But geez, no red-tail cams in the area? Within hours, my blog feed brought up a post at City Birder about the Briarwood Queens red-tail nest, and the red-tail webcam that had just been set up on Jeffrey Kollbrunner's nature photography site.
Watching the nestcam can be addictive. Here's a screenshot from Wednesday afternoon.
The Briarwood mama seems to be a restless girl, as it seems that a third of the time I check the website, she's standing up and stretching, or adjusting the eggs, or "chatting" about something with the male, who seems to visit a lot. I even checked in one night this week at 2:30 a.m. and found her up and about. Must be the 24/7 lighting at their nest.
Later Tuesday night, Bruce commented at UrbanHawks that there were 10 red-tail nests active about the city. Ten? I could think of nine that I had heard of. Some e-mail answered all questions.
So far, the red-tailed hawk nests in NYC that Bruce or I have received reliable reports about are:
- Manhattan - Fifth Ave.: Home of Palemale and Lola, of course.
- Manhattan - Seventh Ave.: Palemale Jr. and Charlotte's new home, across the street from Carnegie Hall.
- Manhattan - Cathedral of St. John the Divine: Tristan and Isolde's home overlooking Morningside Park.
- Manhattan - Highbridge Park: The recently discovered nest way up at the end of Amsterdam Ave.
- Manhattan - Inwood Hill Park: The longtime nest near Skorakopock Rock.
- Bronx - Fordham University: Hawkeye and Rose's home at Collins Hall.
- Bronx - Van Cortlandt Park: Travis and Jodie have rebuilt, although the new nest is apparently not on Vault Hill.
- Brooklyn - Green-Wood Cemetery: Junior and Big Mama's new nest.
- Brooklyn - Prospect Park: Ralph and Alice's nest in the Ravine.
- Queens - Briarwood: Papa and Mama's apartment.
In addition to those places, there are a few other locations where there was nest activity in the past or else a lot of red-tail activity, so one assumes there is probably a nest now. It's just that we haven't heard a report. These include:
- Bronx - Pelham Pay Park Golf Course: The Parks Dept. reported on this nest a year or two ago.
- Bronx - Pelham Bay Park south: Longtime activity; there's probably a nest on or near City Island.
- Queens - Forest Park: Longtime activity.
Some other places I have noted down with having red-tail activity reported, but I either haven't heard about or else have forgotten whether anyone has reported a nest within the last few years, are:
- Manhattan - CCNY/Trinity Cemetery
- Bronx - Crotona Park
- Queens - Flushing Meadows/Mt. Hebron Cemetery
- Queens - Ridgewood Reservoir
- Queens - Juniper Valley Park
- Queens - Cunningham Park
And note that there's no mention of Staten Island anywhere above. One would think there would be several nests out there.
