I spent a couple of hours in Washington Square Park today and saw a lot of Sadie Hawk action.
A fellow Hawk-watcher saw her on her favorite perch a block south of the park earlier this morning.
I first saw Sadie on her favorite southwestern building:
I saw a Peregrine Falcon flying a few buildings north of her but the two raptors didn’t interact during my stay.
Pigeon flocks were plenty nervous and gathered on the park arch (safety in numbers I suppose):
Sadie flew off her building 15 minutes later and circled around the area just north of the park.
I was watching as she flew toward and grabbed onto another bird for a second. I thought she had grabbed a pigeon (the flock had leapt up and started circling too when she was in the air) but I saw that in fact she had fought a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.
They made contact for only a second. I took a couple of pictures of the juvenile but they turned out awful and weren’t blog-worthy I’m afraid.
The juvie circled a little further north but stayed around for another minute. Sadie then got closer and closer to it until it flew away.
Sadie disappeared so I looked for Bobby Hawk in the trees. I didn’t find him but I did see this chatty Red-bellied Woodpecker flying from tree to tree:
I’ve seen Bobby perch on this branch in the past. It’s quite popular apparently!
I noticed Sadie was on her regular One Fifth Avenue perch 20 minutes later:
She looked like she was having a relaxing sun bath until she jumped off after 20 minutes:
She landed on a heat vent on a neighboring building:
A second raptor that looked very much like a Cooper’s Hawk circled near her building for several seconds before moving on.
Sadie flew northeast then circled back toward the park after her 5 minutes’ rest.
Battling a gust:
I found her back around the park 10 minutes later. She went from an east building flag pole to flying fast and low across the park and above the trees. She lowered her legs as if to land or grab prey but she did neither and continued circling and flying:
She then landed on NYU’s Silver Center then on NYU’s Education building:
A flock of pigeons was eating on one of the lawns near me but would get startled by either a dog running toward them or someone waving their arms at them. The birds were a bit of a spectacle sometimes:
Sadie finally flew north again. I had had a full Hawk visit and figured this would be a good time to leave for the day.