Today’s visit had an action-packed hour before both Bobby and a Cooper’s Hawk left the park grounds.
At first I saw Bobby sunning atop the One Fifth Avenue apartment building. He dove off his perch 20 minutes later and flew north. I searched his regular perches north of the park but didn’t find Bobby.
A Cooper’s Hawk appeared in the park several minutes later and spent the next half hour diving incredibly fast as he chased after pigeons. He was unsuccessful in his hunting. He then traveled south of the park.
Bobby on One Fifth Avenue:
The library renovation scaffolding suspended ‘at rest’ on this Sunday. The Hawk nest is in the fifth window from the left:
Park leaves stuffed into huge black garbage bags:
These bags are enormous and have carrying handles:
I could keep an eye on Bobby through the trees as I walked around:
Bobby flew northward.
The visiting Cooper’s Hawk:
The park pigeons assembled on top of the park arch. It seems they gather like this most often when there is a Cooper’s Hawk in the park. The pigeons will either rush to trees or some of the lower building tops when there is a Red-tailed Hawk in the park. But for Cooper’s Hawks they will often sit together on the arch:
The pigeons gathering into a ball, resembling a school of fish doing the same when fleeing predators:
The Cooper’s Hawk dove into and around their formation but did not catch any of them.
Flying past One Fifth Avenue:
Some of his lower belly feathers were reddish. It might have been blood from an earlier meal:
It dove through the trees then landed on a building outside the southern side of the park:
It disappeared when flying further south. Pigeons from that area flew quickly into the park so I gather the Cooper’s Hawk was hunting not far south of the park.
Unfortunately I did not see the juvenile Hawk that was in the park on the 8th. I guess he got the message that he was not welcome back after Bobby and Sadie did such a good job of chasing him away from their territory.