It had been twelve days since I’d last seen Bobby and Rosie so I was pretty happy to see them tonight. A few other people had seen one or both of them but I was always missing seeing them myself, sometimes missing them within two or three minutes.
Rosie was sitting on the purple NYU flag’s pole atop the Silver Center building (east side of the park) when I entered Washington Square Park. I didn’t have my camera out at the moment to take a snap because I was in a rush to get closer to Bobby who was sitting on a tree nearby. His tree was in the southwestern area of the park.
A friend who was already in the park alerted me to Bobby’s location and let me know he was with a pigeon he had caught perhaps in mid-air just a few minutes beforehand (Bobby caught the pigeon either from a branch or while in flight).
He coughed up a pellet. Because his area of the park was fenced off, I could not get close to it to have a look at it.
The pigeon body almost slid off the branch:
A squirrel got close to Bobby so he puffed himself up to intimidate it away from him. It worked.
A clump from Bobby’s plucking on the park bench near me:
I saw Rosie’s shape flying above the trees. She then started to fly down Sullivan Street (south side of the park) in pursuit of a pigeon:
She hovered for a millisecond over the bird then snatched in mid-air. She kept flying down Sullivan, pigeon in her talons:
Bobby saw the action then brought his pigeon to a new perch:
He landed on a corner of the NYU Law Building:
He then hopscotched to one of his favorite dinner table perches.
On another corner of the Law Building:
At his dinner table, a lamp he has been seen eating on before:
The last time I saw him there was when he was eating a squirrel he had caught.
Rosie joined him, flying in from Sullivan Street. She brought her own pigeon with her:
Rosie on the right:
Bobby flew with his pigeon to a spot several feet away:
Rosie:
Bobby, cleaning a talon:
Bobby faced Rosie and watched her eat:
Cleaning his beak:
Rosie flew down Sullivan Street again:
Bobby flew back to the dinner table and started to eat again. Rosie did not like that one bit apparently because she flew back to the table:
Rosie walked to the left-hand side of the lamp:
Bobby is so nice. He has never once fought to keep food for himself. He has always deferred to Violet, Pip, Rosie, and their two fledglings when they wanted to have food he was with (even if he was the one to catch it and was eating it at the moment). He is such a good provider.
Bobby left the lamp and went to the trees across the street again.
Rosie:
Rosie flew south down Washington Square South. She sat on the corner of a building at WSS and MacDougal Streets for a minute before moving on:
On a familiar perch at MacDougal and West 3rd Streets:
She flew diagonally southwest and to a mystery roost. Searching for her for several minutes bore no sighting of her. We’d seen her fly to a roost down that way many times last winter. It was and still is a mystery where she goes to bed in that area!