I didn’t go birding in Washington Square Park this weekend but I did see two Red-tailed Hawks regardless.
On Saturday I heard a Kestrel ‘yelling’ loudly in the sky over the corner of Orchard and Rivington Streets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan while I was having a stroll with a friend.
I looked up to see the Kestrel chasing an adult Hawk, flying from south to north. The Hawk was crying out loudly too. Of the Hawks in the area, my guess was that it was one of the Tompkins Square Park Hawks since we were only 9 blocks south of TSP (not a far distance at all as far as Hawk flights go and the birds were flying in the direction of TSP).
Then on Sunday a friend and I wound up in Tompkins Square Park without planning to. I spotted one of the fledglings playing on one of the eastern lawns, hopping around and grabbing at sticks and making little dives at the bushes. It then flew to the nearby fence for a few seconds. A few locals who were sitting on the bench near the fledgling’s fence looked mildly at the Hawk and continued eating their snack. You gotta love the nonchalance New Yorkers can have over the Hawks sometimes.
The fledgling then flew to the trees at the western side of the park, flew to a building lining the southern border of the park, circled in the sky about five times, then disappeared behind the trees.
I was a little disappointed I didn’t have my camera on me during the sightings but overall it was nice to have the break from being a “Hawk blogger” to someone simply enjoying the sight of such cool birds in the city.
