It was an exciting visit as I followed a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk around Washington Square Park for a few hours. It spent the majority of its time hunting peppered in with resting and preening breaks. It eventually caught a rat then roosted in the park’s Hangman’s Elm for the night.
I did not see either of the resident park Hawks. I was hoping they’d show up so I could see one of them chase the interloper out of the park. I had nothing against the visiting juvenile Hawk, I just wanted to see some territorial action!
I noticed that you can see the Grace Church cross tower quite well from the park:
This is helpful so that I don’t have to walk all the way to Broadway to check if one of the Hawks is sitting up there as one was a couple of days earlier.
Pigeons kept mysteriously freaking out and I couldn’t figure out why until a juvenile Hawk zipped in front of me while I was Hawk-searching in the east side of the park:
The following pics are a mix of action and glamour shots:
Sitting in the tree (center of photo):
Its markings looked very much like the juvenile Hawk that Goggla saw hunting in Tompkins Square Park on the 11th.
It dove to the ground to catch a rat but missed. You can just make the Hawk out by the fence line:
Silhouetted by the moon:
