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

Bobby grabs then loses a squirrel, chases off intruder Hawk – October 14th, 2017

I saw both Bobby and Sadie in fine form in Washington Square Park today. A fellow Hawk-watcher saw Bobby earlier in the trees so I was optimistic of seeing some sweet action.

Bobby was sitting in a western tree:

He grabbed a squirrel from a branch in front of me. He stopped on a dime too fast for me to photograph nicely but I did get a cool shot of him falling head-down with his catch:

He lost his grip and dropped the squirrel. I didn’t see where the squirrel wound up.

Hi:

The pigeons scattered as Bobby landed in their favorite tree:

He eventually flew southward. I looked for him with a friend. All of a sudden we heard a loud Hawk shriek overhead and saw Sadie fly to and land on her southwestern corner perch:

She flew south too. She caught up with Bobby there. They circled above the park together for a few minutes higher and higher:

Sadie followed Bobby land on a building top northeast of the park. It’s the building full of antennas beyond the park and Silver Center building:

I’ve seen the Hawks perch up there infrequently in the past. It’s a great perch to view their entire domain from.

Bobby on an antenna, Sadie coming in for a landing:

Sadie flew over to get closer to him.

She wasn’t able to balance on her new perch so she hopped down even closer:

They stayed that way for a minute until Bobby dove off his perch, flew over the park, and disappeared south.

He soon rose up into view circling with another Hawk who I suppose he was kindly escorting from his territory because he circled with it further and further south from the park. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture any of the visitor’s details.

Sadie flew off her perch and circled in front of it as my friend and I left the park to search for Bobby and the interloper. We didn’t find the pair and left for the day.


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