Adult Hawks and a hunting fledgling – October 1st, 2019

Today’s Hawk sightings made up for a lack of birds from my last two outings. I went out on September 27th and 29th but saw no Hawks.

However a Hawk-watching friend saw at least one Hawk during that time so I knew they were around.

I first saw one of the Hawks an hour after I set out today. It was Juno, circling just south of Union Square Park. I then saw three Hawks in the sky! They were mama Sadie Hawk, Juno, and a fledgling.

They were all circling closely together. Sadie did most of the challenging; she would circle very close with the fledgling.

It was obvious that Sadie and Juno were trying to force the youngster away from their territory range.

Sadie and the fledgling:

Sadie landed on top of the Con Edison tower. A second Hawk came flying over to her:

I thought it was Juno at first but no, it was the fledgling! It descended toward the top of the tower:

I don’t know exactly where the fledgling went but did see it fly away from the tower after several seconds.

Juno landed on a lower section of the tower a minute later:

Sadie flew off then headed southwest:

Juno followed. They were headed in the direction of Washington Square Park so I went back to WSP to look for them.

I wasn’t seeing the Hawks anywhere in Washington Square Park so I went to the nearby Sasaki Garden to pack up and leave for the day. This garden sits on top of an underground parking garage between two huge apartment buildings called Washington Square Village. This apartment complex is one block south of Bobst Library (home of the Hawk nest).

There were tons of butterflies flying in Manhattan today and several were in Sasaki Garden as well.

A Monarch:

I was sitting down and about to pack my camera when I noticed a lot of feathers lining the path in front of me. There was a whole lot of them so I thought, ‘Wow, something must have had a pretty good bird meal.’ The feathers looked like they hadn’t been there long either.

I checked around me just in case but saw no sign of a Hawk or other raptor nearby.

I had just put my camera away when all of a sudden a fledgling Red-tailed Hawk flew right past me and into a tree behind me.

Change of plans! I hurriedly reassembled my camera and whipped off a pic:

It immediately flew to the other side of Sasaki Garden. I caught up with it as it was scanning a lawn for prey.

I think it was a female based on the thick ankles but I could be wrong. But for the rest of the post I’ll refer to this bird as a she.

This bird is unbanded so she is obviously not one of Sadie’s and Bobby’s kids. For my new readers, Bobby was Sadie’s mate who disappeared before Juno’s appearance in the park. Sadie and Bobby had three babies this spring.

We’re at the start of the fall migration period so we may see several more Hawks passing through the area over the next few weeks.

The fledgling spotted something in the grass and dove right down to it:

Hello:

It may look like I was right next to her thanks to my telephoto lens but I was a good, respectful distance away.

Nice catch!

She took her prey to a new tree:

Sadie and Juno passed over her tree after she had finished her meal. They then circled together a block west of her:

The fledgling watching them:

Preening time:

She then flew from tree to tree and perch to perch.

Landing on a Washington Square Village terrace:

Another terrace on the other side of the complex:

I lost sight of her as she flew low over buildings along the western border of Sasaki Garden:

I did not find her or Sadie and Juno again but that was OK! Today’s sightings was pretty great after so long of hardly any sightings.

I’m thinking the garden fledgling may have been the same one that had been circling with Juno and Sadie outside Union Square Park. Sadie looked like she was pursuing something when she dove off the Con Ed tower and headed in the direction of Washington Square/Sasaki so it could have been this fledgling she was after.