After a few days of no Red-tailed Hawk sightings no matter when I did my park searches, I finally saw Rosie and Bobby today. Other locals had seen Bobby, Rosie, and a fledgling over the last few days so at least the Hawks were not wholly absent.
Rosie and Bobby were reported seen together on a window ledge at NYU’s Shimkin Hall. I was lucky to see Rosie still at Shimkin when I arrived at Washington Square Park minutes later:
Within a couple of minutes she flew north:
She landed on a water tower:
She flew off her perch the moment I was checking my camera settings.
Thankfully, a Hawk was seen in the trees at the western side of the park so I joined fellow Hawk-watchers to observe it. We thought it was Rosie at the time but after going home and looking closer at my photos, I am pretty sure this Hawk was Bobby.
There are a couple of ways to tell them apart. His head is more brown than red and the undersides of his wings are not as heavily-patterned with red feather markings as Rosie’s. Plus, his tail feathers now are more staggered in shape and size as he moults than hers. Hers are more evenly-spaced and he has two noticeable splits on either side of his tail feathers.
He and Rosie had been seen gathering nesting material twigs in recent days.
Bobby was walking on dead branches and twigs. One of the branches snapped from his weight so he fell down through the tree but kept a tight hold of his nice twig:
Flying through the trees and heading north out of the park:
He flew in a semi-circle above the area of the park we were standing in and disappeared. It looked at first like he may have landed high in trees nearby but he may have just kept flying. The foliage is still very thick. I spotted Rosie high up in a tree where I thought Bobby might have landed. In either case, it was definitely Rosie who was next seen perched high above:
She flew off her perch after about twenty five minutes.
Note how red her wing patterning is compared to Bobby’s between this photo of her and the one of him falling through the tree several photos up:
Watching pigeons fly about her:
A pigeon landed near her:
After a couple of minutes it flew away from her:
She had relaxed at her new perch for so long (forty five minutes), many pigeons from that flock came and went on the branches near her.
She flew outside the park and landed on an antenna of a building diagonally southwest of the park (the building with the words “Washington View” carved into the stone for those of you who know the area):
After a few minutes she started soaring in circles above the southern border of the park:
Two small feathers growing in at her upper wing tips, tail feathers rather evenly-spaced and almost equal length:
I overheard a man tell his young daughter (referring to the Hawks), “Look, there’s two of them!”
Thanks to hearing him say that, I took my camera off Rosie and just then saw Bobby taking off from his building top perch.
Lighter patterning on the underside of his wings, more uniform wing feathers, and more unevenly-spaced tail feathers:
Rosie had soared north and Bobby followed her. I saw both their silhouettes above the park but lost sight of both of them soon enough.
I spotted Rosie sitting at the construction area of Two Fifth Avenue when I reached the northwest corner of the park. Two Fifth is an apartment building center-north of the park:
She soared in several circles above the northern part of the park:
Flying northwest of Two Fifth Avenue:
After a few minutes I saw who might have been Rosie soaring north up Fifth Avenue, toward the Empire State Building (but probably only landing around 14th Street):
My fellow Hawk-watchers did not see this Hawk’s flight since they were on University Place (and I was at Fifth) but they did then see a Hawk fly in the same direction of the first Hawk up 5th Avenue a few minutes later. It was the second Hawk following the other. It had been a lengthy outing and the Hawks were so far north, we all bid each other a good day and went our separate ways.
Nice to see a Hawk after long last and nice to see Bobby and Rosie together!