Red-tailed Hawk landing on nest, Bobst Library, NYU, New York City

Brief Hawk sightings from last few days – October 12th, 2012

Per what a local Hawk-watcher recently informed me, either Bobby or Rosie was seen on and off Judson Memorial Church cross a few times on October 9th (the last time being 15 minutes before I got to the park). On October 10th, one of the Hawks was seen perched on NYU’s Kimmel Center, a couple of buildings east of Judson Memorial Church. So the Hawks are around, I just haven’t had good timing seeing and photographing them. I did not see any Hawks last night (the 11th).

Today I had a few minutes to visit the Southeastern corner of Central Park. I spotted the Red-tailed Hawk that lives at that corner dive past Bergdorf’s:

I saw soaring in the distance and thought it might be my Hawk but it turned out to be a Turkey Buzzard:

It had many friends with it:

Note the released balloon in the lower left-hand side of the photo above. At one point I counted seven Buzzards but was not able to get all the birds in one frame without the image getting blurry.

Circle dance:

A lone Buzzard broke away from the group and soared over the park and Fifth Avenue:

It was soaring pretty high up:

I lost sight of it as it soared south past 5th Avenue and 55th Street.

Evening update: Even though I didn’t see Rosie or Bobby in Washington Square Park today after work, a couple of Hawk-watching friends got to see lots of Rosie action a couple of hours beforehand.

Rosie was hopscotching from tree to tree and at one point even hovered and flapped above a little tree for a few seconds as she searched for prey in the brush underneath.

Rosie then landed on a low iron fence lining the park. The fence wasn’t even chest-high yet she sat there calmly, surrounded by people. She looked into the brush for prey as she sat, oblivious to the people around her. She eventually flew to the trees again.

She next spent some time soaring in many circles above the park before flying away for the day.

Although I didn’t get to enjoy Hawks, I did get to marvel at tonight’s sunset:


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