I was looking for the Washington Square Park Red-tailed Hawks east of the park when I could swear I heard one of the fledglings crying out from the top of the building to my left.
There was a rusty flag pole that was squeaking just ahead of me as well as men working with a squeaky pulley on the next block so I almost began to doubt that I had heard the fledgling.
But then I saw one of the fledglings as it flew from the building to my left, cross over the street, then land on the building to my right. I was relieved I wasn’t going crazy and had only been wanting to hear a fledgling crying.
It went to a pigeon that was lying on a ledge at the back of NYU’s Silver Center building:
I watched it eat for about 40 minutes.
A truck driver got out of his vehicle and approached me and asked if I were looking at a Hawk. I said yes and he told me that he delivered supplies to a store on the same block last week around 5:30/6:00 in the morning and had seen one of the Hawks.
He said he was walking along and heard a loud bang. He looked and saw one of the Hawks land on the sidewalk near him. Apparently it had flown into a low window and landed on the sidewalk, looking dazed. He said other people told him the bird had been hunting rats by the garbage bags before it accidentally flew into the window. He said the Hawk then gathered itself and flew away after a few minutes.
I figured it was probably one of the fledglings since they are still a bit inexperienced and getting the hang of flying around building. A couple of fellow Hawk-watchers and I saw both fledglings doing well since that accident so if it were one of the WSP kids, it was clearly a minor mishap. 🙂
***
Cleaning up, wiping his beak:
The fledgling then walked further along its ledge and out of sight from the street.
I then walked around the park and surrounding blocks in search of the other Hawks but didn’t find any of them before I had to leave.