Monday, February 17, 2014

Meet the neighbors

Nest-building activity continues for the Tompkins Square hawks.  I had fun today watching them go about their business of collecting sticks, killing things, and frolicking with each other.

I have yet to catch both of them at the nest site at the same time.  So far, they've been taking turns.

Red tail nest on the Christodora

That said, the pair are spending a lot of time close to each other.  Here they are atop St Brigids.

Hawk pair on St Brigids

And in a favorite tree, cutting twigs.

Hawk pair cutting sticks from a tree

Success!

Victory!

As for identifying the two, I can't quite tell them apart yet.  I'm guessing this is the male:

Male?

It is a fairly light colored bird, a bit slender, and stands above the other when they're perched together.  This one has also been very busy gathering sticks.

This is the one I'm guessing is the female:

Female?

It's a bit bigger than the other bird and has darker coloring, especially on the shoulder area of the wings.  Here is the same bird eating a pigeon, which was caught and left in a tree by the other bird:

Female?

Again, I'm totally guessing at the genders and could be wrong.

Stay tuned!

See more hawk photos on my Flickr page:
City hawks 1
City hawks 2

Previous hawk posts.

6 comments:

  1. The bigger one will be the female.

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  2. Thank you! There is another flock around Avenue A and 10th Street that I see regularly. There's something very soothing about their circling. One of those city experiences...

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  3. These are SO beautiful! When I come home from work through Brownsville, I usually see a flock circling and swooping ... the best sight at the end of the day and Alfred Kazin wrote about watching pigeons there in the 20s, so it feels like a little bit of time travel.

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  4. Ha, great series. Wanna see more.

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  5. I've been away - this is great news to come back to!

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  6. > Video clip here

    whoa, baby!!! totally cool!

    I-)

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