Morningside Hawks

A two-hour walk on a cold day with only about four minutes of raptor sightings? Totally worth it.

A hike along the parkway from the GW Bridge up to Dyckman St. was fruitless, but on reaching Dyckman... bang. A red-tail perched in the tree above the house at Payson Playground on the south side of Inwood Hill Park. From the looks of it, the Inwood adult male.

After a walk along the Hudson shoreline in Dyckman Fields and starting along the trail around the hill... good god, something huge over the river. A bald eagle! It circled about a few times and then headed back north toward Riverdale.

The park ranger and the bird watchers down by the river must have gotten an eyeful.

There have been two juvenile red-tailed hawks as well as at least one adult hanging around Tompkins Square Park in the East Village since November. Seems like easy pickings for the hawkwatcher, but a visit to the park late Sunday afternoon took 45 minutes before one of the juvie puts in an appearance.

He was preening when found, but shortly after he hopped down to a lower branch where part of a pigeon carcass was cached. Dinner took 30-35 minutes as he was making sure to get every last morsel of the pigeon.

A stroll into the north end of Central Park late Sunday afternoon revealed two red-tailed hawks with minimal effort. A juvenile was hunting by the Pool, and while it was lurking there, an adult circled over the Great Hill a few times.

The juvie progressively changed perches before circling about over the Ravine and then disappearing towards Lasker Rink. While the juvie was leaving, the adult appeared again, circled about ten or twelves times in the sunset light before it too exited, apparently to go perch atop the Cardinal Cooke building.