Month: January 2013

January 10th: I was not able to visit the Southeastern Central Park Red-tailed Hawks and check on their nest-building progress. But I did watch them from my company’s windows as they soared and flew low around the Grand Army Plaza pigeons. They were quite active the whole day.

January 11th: I had a few minutes to visit the park but saw no Hawks!

Nest not really taking much shape (yet?) but evidence of activity:

Continue to the full post… ““Plaza Hawks”, January 10th & 11th, 2013″

I haven’t mentioned this before (because I didn’t yet have the amount of evidence I needed) but it’s now clear to me that the Southeastern Central Park Red-tailed Hawks I’ve been following are building a nest at The Plaza Hotel.

I’d been watching the Hawks bring twigs to a particular ledge more frequently than to other spots on the building’s facade over the last couple of weeks. Because they had been bringing bits to other ledges from time to time, I couldn’t be sure if they were in nest-building ‘practice’ mode or if they were seriously seeking a new nest location.

The Hawks had started building a nest at the nearby Crown Building last year but that nest was poorly constructed and never amounted to anything.

Another reason I was keeping mum about this was because I wanted to be sure of this activity before contacting Plaza management and alerting them to the presence of the Hawks and the nest.

After I returned from my visit to the park I called and spoke directly with an exceptionally courteous and receptive representative of the hotel’s management staff. The news of the Hawks and their potential nest was well-received. In my conversation I mentioned that under Federal Law, the Hawks and the nest are protected and that I would be happy to pass along the wording of and link to the statute for them to pass on to their appropriate colleagues. To my surprise, the representative asked me to also please include in my email what precautions the building’s engineering department should take to protect the Hawks and the nest.

I sent my email to the Plaza contact with all the information later this afternoon.

Below are some of the highlight photos from today’s visit to the park.

Hawk at the location of the nest:

Continue to the full post… “Red-tailed Hawk nest at The Plaza Hotel – January 9th, 2013”

Photos from January 2nd, 2013

Continue to the full post… “Quiet nearness to Southeastern Central Park Red-tailed Hawk”