Red-tailed Hawk landing on nest, Bobst Library, NYU, New York City

Fledgling relaxes in the pigeon tree – July 9th, 2017

One of the adult Washington Square Park Red-tailed Hawks was on One Fifth Avenue when I arrived this morning. Sometimes it looked like Bobby, sometimes like Sadie so I have no idea which Hawk it was. It got dive-bombed by a Mockingbird soon enough:

I searched the whole park for the fledgling for 40 minutes but was having no luck. Sparrows were living it up having their usual sand bath in the bocce court:

I heard Blue Jays calling out a fuss so I headed over to where they were in the hopes they were yelling about a Hawk being in the vicinity.

Indeed they were because the fledgling zipped to and landed in a tree near where the calls were coming from.

The fledgling was in the tree the western flock of pigeons perch in the most. The pigeons get fed underneath that tree by a few park regulars every day.

The pigeons didn’t seem too happy that their refuge was invaded:

The adult Hawk was still on One Fifth and I could see it and the fledgling at the same time. The Hawk sitting on the right-hand ledge of the building in the distance and the fledgling on the lower-right hand branch:

More Mockingbird troubles:

The pigeons and Sparrows being fed under the fledgling’s tree:

The fledgling would watch the pigeons on the path, in the air, and on the branches near her:

The adult Hawk flew off One Fifth and headed southeast about 20 minutes later.

The fledgling was in relaxation mode so this was about as exciting as it got:

It was a beautiful day and the park was packed.

The park-goers in our area (note the people with raised cameras in the distance. They’re taking pics of the fledgling high above them.):

I left the park after 3 hours and of course a fellow Hawk-watcher let me know the fledgling was diving for prey multiple times less than 15 minutes after I had left the park. 🙂 So it goes. I was glad that they got to see nice action during their ‘shift’ though as it were.


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