I arrived at Washington Square Park around 3:15PM on Saturday. The nest site looking good with Sexton’s framed items lined tightly in a row against the window so the birds don’t get so spooked by inside activity:
A squirrel found a great piece of paper towel for his nest:
But some mean squirrel higher up in the tree attacked him so he dropped his nesting material:
I was at this point looking for Bobby in case he was hunting in the trees.
I went to the park’s square to get a better view of the whole area and saw Rosie just as she flew by for a nest break. I learned later that this occurred after Bobby flew in to the nest ledge and took on incubation duty for her (naturally).
Landing on Two Fifth Avenue:
She flew from west to east then back again:
She landed in a tree at the western side of the park:
She was in a tree overlooking what some of us Hawk-watchers on the ground call The Pigeon Path since it’s where pigeons are regularly fed.
She kept her eye on one particular young pigeon:
But others flying near her as they landed on other trees interested her as well of course:
She then enjoyed a nice bout of stretching and preening:
A park regular was guarding the little pigeon (with some humor of course) from Rosie. He was explaining to a friend that he recently found it and it seemed to be a few days old. He said it wasn’t flying much.
It sounded to me as though it may have been sick but it was none of my business so I kept to myself and kept photographing Rosie and chatting with random people who’d approach me and ask what that beautiful bird in the tree was all about.
Clearing her throat:
The din of drumming and chanting got closer and closer. I turned around and saw it was caused by Occupation Wall Street rally marchers, heading right in my direction.
I whipped around to fire off a couple of shots.
Three friends who found themselves ‘leading’ the charge:
NYPD suits not looking so thrilled to be there:
Rosie watched with her usual ho-humness:
Some of the passing group must have noticed my activity because they turned to take a look at Rosie:
Rosie saw as the little pigeon walked into the open:
The pigeon’s guardian tried to chase Rosie but he had no chance of catching up with her. Besides, the little pigeon was a goner at that point.
Looked like this man may have been swinging at her:
Note the photo shoot in the background and the lady in the purple dress:
The nest ledge is in the distance, above her left wing:
She has what looks like dried discharge stuck to the area below her eye:
Cleaning her beak:
The Hawks like to use a different branch or area of the same branch a good distance from their meal for their beak-cleaning. It makes sense in that one part of a branch is the ‘dinner table’ while the other is a clean spot to freshen up.
She flew out of the trees and to a nearby building’s chimney:
She returned to the nest at 5:09PM (according to my camera’s time stamp):
That means her nest break was for just over an hour and a half.
Bobby then flew out of the nest:
He flew directly to the tree I and a couple of others were standing by (where Rosie ate the pigeon):
I thought he might have come to that tree for the leftovers (left on the branch) but he didn’t approach them.
He stayed on this tree for thirteen minutes.
In a new tree:
He seemed to have headed to that tree to scare away what looked like either a Cooper’s Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk (which promptly flew away from the park):
Bobby in the air again:
He eventually flew east from the park and out of sight. It was time for me to head out anyway since I had errands to run.