9/29, Fly-By

Not much to report lately. A couple visits to Morningside Park and Central Park's North Woods in the past couple weeks have not resulted in any hawk sightings. Tristan and Isolde are around, however, as Jim caught both members of the Cathedral couple hunting near their nest last Saturday morning (it's the fourth picture down).

Today I had an hour to spend in Central Park just before sunset. I'd hoped to catch Pale Male at the Turtle Pond tree, but Lincoln had the spot staked out and hadn't seen His Paleness. And neither was Lola perched at the Beresford, at 6:00 or when I looked that way again at 6:30 (the above pic).

After scoping out various likely spots, I did finally make a hawk sighting at 6:45. For nearly a minute, a hawk circled about over Central Park West between 69th and 72nd St. Pix didn't turn out well because of distance and lighting. It's hard to tell who it might have been, but one pic suggested at an adult's red tail and another at a lighter breast, so I'd guess, given the location, that it was Pale Male Jr. He headed south and I lost him behind some trees.

Tomorrow is the annual (?) falconry show.

9/15, Almost Autumn

Just a touch chilly in the early evening on Saturday, and many folks could be spotted in jackets or sweaters. Climatic autumn began two weeks ago, and astronomical autumn starts at the end of the coming week.

After looking for a birthday gift in the 80s on the UWS, I headed over to Central Park to see if Pale Male or Lola was in one their usual haunts. Just before 7:00, Lola was perched in her favorite spot, keeping an eye on things. I have to wonder when the last time it was that she went to roost somewhere different.

I bumped into Bruce also watching Lola, but after an afternoon of taking pictures of migrants and other birds in the park. Then a few minutes later I met Lincoln over by the Turtle Pond. Many small birds were to be seen flying overhead, although it seemed all were headed north. But Pale Male was not in any of usual spots about the area. The sun was setting and hawkwatching quickly ended.

9/8, Oh, the Humidity

Was it just me, or was the humidity off the scale today? The temperature was fine, but a 90-minute walk about the north end of Central Park left me soaked.

Anyway, no sign of red-tail hawks today. The above pic of a female or first-year common yellowthroat, perched for a second on the fence along the south side of Harlem Meer, was the only half-interesting bird pic that I did take.

But that isn't to say that I didn't see any hawks, as at about 7:00 while walking across the ballfields at the south end of Morningside Park, something hawk-like did fly over, from the 116 Step Hill towards the southeast corner entrance. But it was too stream-lined to be a red-tail. Given the size, I suspect it was a Cooper's.

9/2, Still in the 'Hood

By late July, the Cathedral red-tail hawk parents are hard to find. They seem to have decided that the kids don't need to be defended (or can at least be secretly watched over from a distance) and it's time the fledglings learned to hunt for themselves anyway. But where do the adults go? It almost seems like they're on vacation somewhere. Perhaps they're just hanging about the far peripheries of their territory which went untended back when they were watching the kids closely. The Cathedral seems to lie on the western edge of their range; they've been noted as far east as Madison Ave. in the 100s, and Marcus Garvey Park at Fifth and 120th may also "belong" to them.

I checked in at Central Park today, first walking down to the Turtle Pond area to see if Pale Male might be perched on the Belvedere Castle flagpole as he's done in the last few days. He wasn't there, and Lincoln indicated he hadn't seen PM or Lola all day. So back up the east side of the park to see if there was any activity around the Conservatory Garden, where a fledgling was seen this past week. Instead I found Tristan from the Cathedral perched on the rooftop railing of the Guggenheim Pavilion at Mount Sinai (Fifth Ave. at 101st St.), mostly preening and sometimes watching traffic. This particular spot may be about the southeast limit of Tristan and Isolde's territory, as any further south seems to impinge on PM and Lola's range.