Morningside Hawks: 7/16, Backstop Hawk

Monday

Beautiful day.

5:34 p.m. - Tristan is at the Cathedral, perched up top on Gabriel's horn.

5:53 - After walking arcound south end of Morningside Park, stop at pond to take pictures of the great egret perching within just a few feet of people.

But wait, what's that screeching?

5:55 - Yep, a red-tail fledgling perched in a tree at the bottom of the 116 Steps hill.

Now, who is this? Belly band is not heavy, so it's not Brownie. Could be either Eldest or Youngest.

Not clear whose attention she's trying to get with the screeching. Tristan is still up on the Cathedral roof, but the fledge can see there from here.

6:06 - As jazz band set up by the pond dives into the first chart of a free show for park users (very Basie; the first few tunes sound straight off his April in Paris album), fledge flits over to adjacent tree. Meanwhile, a couple paassing by stops to chat, and one mentions that they saw all three of the fledglings perched together on the near-by baseball backstop a few days earlier. Then the fledge flies up into the trees to the south.

6:18 - After heading up the hill, looking around and then taking the path down to the southwest corner of the park, arrive back on lower level just in time to see the fledgling fly out of the trees and land on the fresh logs, less than ten feet from a couple guys sitting on a bench.

Initially they have no clue she's there, but when she hops down to the ground they realize what's behind them.

6:19 - And then she flies up to perch on the backstop screen.

Lovely location for a photographer to get close and take pix, but the fledgling is pretty backlit from a lot of angles. On the other hand, there are some colorful backdrops from other angles.

She seems to like the spot, and realatively quickly gets used to the sounds from a couple kids practicing batting and fielding on the diamond below.

6:38 - After looking around for 20 minutes, the fledge flies off to the backstop onto ground on the hillside on the other side of the path.

A failed leap for prey? If so, she missed. She does pick somethingup in her beak but decides she doesn't like it, then looks around in consternation. (Well, okay, that's the way they look half the time anyway.)

And glares at a candy wrapper.

6:39 - And then flies back up to the backstop.

6:48 - And another flight down to the ground, looking around some rocks a little further up the hill.

She jogs around a bit, but doesn't move more than 10 feet from where she landed.

6:51 - Back up to the backstop.

6:54 - And then across the park to a tree near the 113th St. entrance.

6:55 - Back to the rockface.

6:56 - And up to the top of a tree to the south.

As I'm angling around for a position where I can get an idea what she's up to up there, I realize there are sounds of "hey, camera guy" coming from a woman letting her dog play on the ballfield. She indicates that there is another hawk perched on apartment building across Manhattan Ave. Sure enough, there's a fledgling on a chimney alongside someone's roof deck at the corner of 112th St.

6:58 - And meanwhile, fledgling number takes to the air again, circles around and up over Morningside Drive, disappears into the cathedral close area, then flies back out and up to perch on the rooftop finial above the statue of St. James the Great.