7/11, Hunting in the Cathedral Close

Two of the young red-tailed hawks at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine were hunting in the close, the campus on the south side of the cathedral, late Monday afternoon. One was low, one was high.

The first to be found was the low bird, first spotted just west of the Cathedral House.

It was obviously hunting, head wiggling about to examine things from different angles and hopping from branch to branch.

Although it did preen for a moment now and again.

This went on for about 10 minutes.

And then the young bird took and swooped around to the other side of the Cathedral House.

The sparrows in the area almost went insane. Instead of the angry chip-chipping of robins, there was an unceasing twitter.

The young hawk apparently decided space here was too constrained and the hunting would be poor. After a couple minutes, it took off, apparently going over the roof of the Cathedral Close. While looking to see where it went, I found another of the cathedral's young hawks perched way, way up atop the unfinished tower of the West Front.

Another couple minutes and it took off.

Soared over the close (it seems to be getting this flying thing down).

And sailed down to the other end of the cathedral.

It too was ogling the ground of the close, looking for unwary prey.

It wasn't immediately clear that the birds I had seen were separate, so it seemed time to head around to Morningside Park to see if the other young red-tails were lurking there. But before I exited the close, angry robin noises again indicated the presence of a hawk. The low-hunting bird had apparently found prey.

It was perched in a tree by the Peace Fountain, slowly plucking a pigeon and preparing to feast.

7/10, Noisy Sunday

The weekly or bi-weekly Sunday music event in Morningside Park near the upper 113th St. entrance made it difficult to search for the young red-tailed hawks as one could not listen for the sound of angry robins. Possibly the hawks were irritated, too, as an hour after I had started looking, one of them finally popped out of the nice, quiet close on the south side of the cathedral and landed on the cathedral roof.

7/7, Young Hawks on a Horn

Two of the cathedral red-tailed hawk fledglings were playing around on the rooftops early this evening. The third was apparently not to be found.

After a couple sightings along 113th St at 6:00, I again encountered the rooftop lurkers about 6:30. One was perched on the finial above St. Peter.

Several minutes later, another flew out of the cathedral close and landed below, on the St. Savior Chapel cross.

Moments later, both took off to the north. When I made it back up to 113th St. expecting to see them hopping around the hospital roof, I instead one found one perched all the way atop the cathedral, on St. Gabriel's horn.

A minute later, the other landed on one of Gabriel's wings.

Except for a couple brief fly-arounds, the duo stayed on Gabriel for the next 15-20 minutes. But they weren't quietly doing so. Rather they kept moving about. Part of it seemed to be a competition to see who could perch all the way out on the tip of Gabriel's horn.

But neither managed to balance there neatly. So hop off and back onto one Gabriel's wings.

Try again.

It was much easier to perch back away the tip.

Just past 7:00, the pair took off again, this time definitely to the roof of St. Luke's hospital. Aside from shifting position from one wing to another...

It looked like they were there to stay.