Bobby and Rosie are back to being in Washington Square Park more frequently now and a few of us Hawkers got to spend a nice long day with them. I was there for about five and a half hours but it didn’t seem so long since it was fun to see what they would do next and it had been so long since I had seen them in action.
I first saw Rosie flying around the apartment buildings outside the northern border of the park less than ten minutes after I had arrived:
She landed on NYU’s Silver Center (outside the eastern side of the park):
I had been watching Rosie for about half an hour when I saw Bobby fly from one tree to another across the way from me. He had obviously been there the whole time!
I walked under the trees he landed in but couldn’t find him. I heard a Kestrel going crazy so I figured it was ‘yelling’ at one of the Hawks so I kept my eyes peeled to see where the Kestrel was so it could lead me to where Bobby was. But then I saw one of the Hawks fly into the nest:
It was Bobby. The Kestrel was still going nuts. I saw it fly toward Rosie’s direction (she was still on the Silver Center railing). Rosie joined Bobby in the nest three minutes after he flew in, the Kestrel chasing her:
The Kestrel circled outside the nest a couple of times, still crying out in a challenging way, then left. There are Kestrels that live a block south of the park and maybe a block or two west of the park.
This Kestrel was most likely one of the ones that live a block south from the Hawk nest and was puffing itself up and trying to be territorial. But the Kestrels have never shown themselves to be a true threat to the Hawks or their offspringin the three years Bobby has nested in the parkso their behavior seems to be more for display.
Rosie peeked out from the ledge six minutes later:
She flew west down the street to the Judson Memorial Church cross:
She was on the cross for twenty minutes. I went to look for her but didn’t find her so I returned to the park just in time to see Bobby fly from the direction of the nest to one of his favorite spots on Silver:
Bobby finally got up and did some nice stretching:
He flew off his perch after an hour and fifteen minutes, flying directly to trees on the other side of the park.
I found him three minutes later. He was having a nice preen:
At one point he was spotlit in the sun:
Another stretch before flying off to a new tree a few trees west:
He had been in his previous tree for twenty minutes.
Bobby in his new tree:
As we watched Bobby, Rosie flew from behind us to a tree just north of him. We realized she had been in a tree near us the whole time we were with Bobby.
Bobby found some nice dead twigs to look through for nesting material. He spent a few minutes doing this.
He broke a twig off with a loud snap:
He transferred the twig to his foot then flew northeast with it:
He dropped the twig then flew southward but only seemed to make it as far as the next patch of trees.
One of our group went to look for Bobby. I stuck around with Rosie.
After several minutes she spotted something and went after it:
She was going after a small squirrel:
It scurried safely to the other side of the trunk.
Rosie must have heard it because she started going after it again:
A man exercising nearby walked over to her, interrupting her. She flew to a tree but in a rather low branch. Another man then took out his smart phone and approached her to take a photo of her. She fled to a higher tree further west:
She then went to an even higher branch in a tree further south:
Here she found a good spot to preen. She watched the flock of pigeons that hang out and are fed in that area in between preening sessions.
She chased one of the pigeons after an hour in her new tree. It looked like she might have grabbed or bumped one for a split second but it escaped her:
She flew to a new tree for a few minutes then to a lamp post along a northern park path:
Lots of people stopped to take her photo. They were all pretty enchanted and looked happy to have seen her. Rosie was totally unfazed as usual when she’s on a lamp post. She eventually flew to a tree after twenty-five minutes.
She flew off after a minute then south (Bobst Library on the left, NYU’s Kimmel Center on the right):
A fellow Hawk-watcher and I looked for her but had no luck. I left for the day (it was a good time for me to leave and run errands and have a snack!).