This is the only guy in a red suit that I saw on Christmas Day.
The niece and nephew are now teen-agers, which means opening presents on Christmas is now a noon event. So I spent a couple hours of the beautiful morning checking out the north end of Central Park and Morningside Park to see if any of the raptors were up and about. But despite scanning the skies and all of Tristan and Isolde's usual perches, there was no sign of red-tails. The above cardinal and the sparrow below were the only birds that I took decent pix of.
The cardinal was perched very quietly near the Blockhouse, which did make me wonder if there might be a raptor about. Perhaps so, as James watched two Cooper's there a few hours later.
But it wasn't a complete raptor bust for me. At the very end of my walk, when I was up on Morningside Drive, I looked down to the cellular antenna structure on the roof of 306-8 West 112th and spotted a kestrel. It was too far for good pix, but they were good enough to reveal the right shape, size and coloring.
I also did not see any red-tails. As for the Cooper's, I've been seeing glimpses of the adult for almost weeks now, with this being the best look I've had yet. The key to finding her was identifying the juvenile calling to her. When next in that area, listen to either squirrels alarm calling or the distinct yet squirrel-like call of the juvy. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteDont know if you saw this, but his name is Hawkmenijad!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bwog.net/articles/breaking_news_hawk_takes_pigeon#comments