3/22, Still Eligible

The adult male red-tailed hawk who has made Riverside Park in the low 110s his home still seems to be living the bachelor life. He has been spotted numerous times over the past week, but always by himself. The only other red-tail reported spending any time in his area was a juvenile seen on the edge of the park at 114th St. on Monday.

Early Wednesday evening last week, after the blizzard, the bachelor was lurking at 113th St.

While on Friday at the same time he was found a block and a half up the street.

Today he was discovered up just above 116th St, not far from last year's nest (which apparently was not his).

Shortly later he flew south and picked a perch overlooking Riverside's 115th St. stairs.

Where he stayed put as sunset approached.

3/14, Riverside's Most Eligible

Even as nesting season gets into full swing at Manhattan's red-tail hawk nests (four mamas brooding eggs at last report), there are also adult hawks out there who are not yet attached. Riverside Park between 110th and 115th St. has been the haunt of an eligible bachelor since at least Christmas, and only within the last week has there been a hint that he may have found a mate.

Tuesday after the snow quit falling, and just before sunset, I encountered him at 115th St. He was apparently hunting and caught something small just as I found him. By the time I caught up to where he was eating, the snack had been consumed.

After looking around for a few minutes, he flew north a bit and perched above the 116th St. sled hill. There he remained until sunset. If he had found a mate, as was suggested by one neighborhood birdwatcher over the weekend, then the new female was not around. However, there was a juvie red-tail seen in the area late last week, so maybe the second bird was an under-aged hawk.

At sunset, he was off to what seems to have been the night's roost, overlooking Riverside Drive.

2/11, Riverside Park in the 110s

An hour-plus of looking for hawks on the Riverside side of Morningside Heights late Saturday afternoon looked to have been futile. The usually reliable "Mr. 116th St." didn't seem be around and the Grant's Tomb hawks were elsewhere. But as I was headed back south and toward home, the 116th St. bird put in an appearance.

Note: Although I call him Mr. 116th St., there's no way to be sure that he was the male of last year's 116th St. nest. Also, no one I've heard from has reporting seeing a "Mrs. 116th St" in the area.

He'd been perched by the Riverside Park wall at 112th St. But when I caught up to him, he had just flown across the road, into the strip between the main part of Riverside Drive and the neighborhood access road.

It didn't seem like much of a spot for hunting, but there was a small area of ground clear of snow. Perhaps he thought he'd catch a mouse sneaking out come sunset, which wasn't far away.

And there's the brief bit of "urban alpenglow" as the setting sun colors the apartment buildings.

Ten or 15 minutes go by, and he finally swoops at something on the ground but comes up with nothing.

Stared intently at the ground for a bit longer.

Flies over to another tree and perches briefly.

And then quietly disappears whilst I look the other way.

1/11, Riverside Park in the 110s

Taking a break from work with a late afternoon stroll along Riverside Drive, I found the "neighborhood hawk" perched little more than a block from the office. This would be the male adult red-tailed hawk who's been so easy to spot in the 110s of Riverside the past few weeks.

Hunting was in progress.

Perhaps five minutes later the bird was in the air. Stopping at 110th St., he looked around for a moment or two.

Then away and further south, apparently making a U-turn as he was next found deeper down in the park at about 109th St. Much later, not long after sunset, he was perched very close to the park wall at 114th St. before flying off to, apparently, go to roost.

1/8, Riverside Park in the 110s

Sunday was cold and there were a couple inches of snow on the ground, so for hawks the hunting was tougher than usual. Just before sunset in the stretch of Riverside Park in the low 110s, I again encountered the male adult red-tail who haunts the area (and is presumably the papa from last year's 116th St. nest), along with another neighborhood hawkwatcher.

As late as it was, it looked like the hawk was still trying to scrounge up a meal to finish his day.

Unfortunately, it was looking like he was going to have to go to bed unsatisfied.

1/6, Riverside Park in the 110s

A pass along the Riverside Park wall near the office at lunch time on Friday found an adult red-tailed hawk also out looking for a meal. When first spotted, it was landing in the top of a tree at 112th St.

This could be the adult male whom I encountered last week a few blocks up the road. If not, it may be his mate. With temperatures having dropped the last couple days and birds fluffing up to stay warm, it's more difficult to use size as a guesstimate of gender.

Within a couple minutes, the hawk swooped south, perhaps going for a squirrel along the park wall. But when re-found, it was perched sans prey at 110th St.

But busy looking around for food.

12/28, Riverside Park in the 110s

A walk along the Riverside Park wall early Wednesday afternoon again found a red-tailed hawk perched just inside the park, across from where 114th St. meets Riverside Drive. Presumably this was the same hawk who was just a tree or two away late Monday afternoon.

The light was much better than two days ago, so it was plain that this was definitely an adult hawk.

Also looks a bit small, suggesting that this is a male. He reminded me of the hawk who was busy hunting a block or two up back at the start of March.

So one wonders, is this the male hawk from this past season's 116th St. nest? Or the male from Grant's Tomb hunting to the south? Or some other guy visiting the area?

Not too many minutes later, the hawk decided the hunting near the park wall wasn't that good — no pigeons, squirrels or other meal-sized prey in sight — and flew downhill to see if the hunting was better there.

12/26, Riverside Park in the 110s

It's winter, which means that should you have time for a stroll in or by a park, it's much easier to spot any hawks who might be lurking about. Late Monday afternoon, just before sunset, I strolled up Riverside Drive in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, and found a red-tailed hawk in Riverside Park between 114th St. and 115th St., about two blocks south of where this past summer's 116th St. nest was (and still is) located.

It was casually watching the area, but not peering around intently as it would if it were hunting. Perhaps it was simply digesting and drying off.

Extreme photo manipulation on Photoshop suggests that the bird was an adult. Although the overall tail color was not obvious because of the gloomy light, there seems to be only a single dark transverse bar near the tip of the tail feathers rather than the multiple stripes of a juvenile's brown tail.

Fifteen minutes later up the street at Grant's Tomb, I found what appeared to be both of the resident pair of adult red-tails going to roost for the night on opposites sides of the walkway leading to the monument. Unfortunately, by that point it was just past sunset, and the light was too poor for photography.

Sad Hawk News

The blog has been quiet a while, right in the middle of what should be one of the busiest times for watching young hawks. Much of that has been because I have had poor luck in finding hawk fledglings so there has been little news to report, but it's also because the news has been bad.

As you may have heard, the red-tail fledgling from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine who was injured and taken to rehab has died. She had managed to fly as far as Manhattan Ave. in the 109th-110th area and crashed. Although no broken bones were found when the vet did X-rays, the young bird had a spinal injury that left her legs paralyzed and also was causing pain. After a week in which treatment was having no effect and her condition was instead deteriorating, there was no choice but to euthanize her.

Adding to the misfortune, a few days later we learned that one of the young red-tails at the nest at Riverside and 116th St. has also died. The best guess is that this bird died of frounce, a diease caught from eating the wrong part of an infected pigeon. The hawk died at the nest; I don't know whether it the one who had not yet fledged when I last visited the site, or if it was a fledgling who had returned to the nest.

And for those who wondered why no reports about the Grant's Tomb hawk nest in so very long, it's because the one hawk nestling at that location apparently died during the last week of April, aged somewhere between two and three weeks. No one knows what happened there, just that the baby was visible in the nest the weekend of April 23 and then by late the following week could not be seen.

So it's been a bad-luck season for the three red-tailed hawk nests in Morningside Heights. We hope that the three baby hawks who were last known healthy are remaining so, and will report on them when we next get some pictures.

6/6, Fledge at West 116th St

Checking on the Riverside Park hawk nest at 116th St. to see if there had finally been a fledge, I found only one young hawk in the nest at the start of the evening.

It was obviously paying attention to something over toward Riverside Drive, and other watchers in the area pointed out that an adult was perched across the street.

But perhaps there was something else that way?

Indeed. Perched almost directly above the head of the hawkwatchers, about 50 feet up and some 30-40 yards from the nest was the other baby hawk.

Whether the young bird had managed to fly over there, no witnesses were around to say. And maybe it had done some crazy amount of branching in order to work its way to a tree above the park's upper walkway. But even if the latter, it's far enough away from the nest that such effort should count as having fledged.

So congratulations, little one.

And meanwhile, mama was perched atop the Paterno apartment building.

But then took off on her rounds.

The fledgling rotated around so that its back was to the sun. It settled in for some preening, and ogling of the passers-by below.

Then mama returned, perching atop 448 Riverside.

Besides keeping an eye on the kids, mama also had other concerns. The next door neighbors, relatively speaking, are not friendly. One of the Riverside Church peregrine falcons was also on patrol.

Mama took off again, but a bit later there was a noisy confrontation overhead when she and the falcon met up. Some screeching and then everyone returned to their corners. Okay for now, but this could get ugly in the coming weeks as the baby falcons also fledge.

One last look at the fledgling in sunset light.