The Red-tailed Hawks of Washington Square Park, NYC… mostly
It was a proper blustery winter day during my Washington Square Park visit today. It even lightly snowed for a few minutes.
Mama Sadie Hawk spent most of her time perched while Bobby flew around and visited the nest several times. It is Bobby who is doing all the nest fly-ins below.
The pair mated twice on the One Fifth Avenue apartment building. The Hawks mate all the way up until the eggs are laid (which could be any minute now). Watch the live nest cam for the egg action.
The Washington Square Hawks were in fine form today. I watched them perch and briefly mate on the ConEd tower (my only time seeing them mate this season). Others have seen them mate all over the park several times!
Bobby then flew to the park and broke off a stick for the nest. He returned to the ConEd tower and perched on areas of the tower I’d never seen him on before. It was quite the amount of action packed into an hour and 15 minutes.
As evening fell I watched Bobby tidy the nest then fly off to his evening roost hours later (video further below).
Both Hawks on the tower:
Sadie and Bobby have been spending much more time in the nest lately, clearly gearing up for the imminent egg laying. They’ve been bringing softer materials (leaves, bark, soft tree bits, and newspaper) especially to the egg bowl the last few days.
Sadie laid her first egg of 2016 on March 13th (confirmed on the 14th) and her first egg of 2017 on March 11th. She laid an egg on March 19th (confirmed on the 20th) in 2015 but there was no Hawk cam set up that year.
Be sure to watch the live Hawk Cam for the action. I recorded some fun footage of both Hawks working on the nest, flying in and out, and otherwise attending to the nest over the last couple of days. At one point it took Bobby only seven seconds to fly to the nest after Sadie flew out of it: