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.
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