The fledgling red-tailed hawk who was taken into rehab for an injury on July 27, was released back into Tompkins Square Park Tuesday afternoon.
Urban Park Ranger Rob Mastrianni, who originally rescued the hawk, had the honor of returning it to its home and family.
Check out those talons!
These video clips show wildlife rehabber, Bobby Horvath (WINORR), handing the hawk off to Rob, who kindly allowed spectators to have a closer look at the bird.
As stated in the videos, this is the third (youngest) offspring of
resident red-tails, Christo and Amelia, this season. And, it turns out
she is a small female (we had previously guessed this was a male). She
was hatched in the park in late April, and fledged the nest on June 10.
The actual release was very quick - just a few seconds as Rob lifted her up into a tree and she flapped to a higher branch.
Resting and regrouping in a tree:
After about 30 minutes, the fledgling swooped to the ground and caught a mouse, a good sign that she is able to hunt and catch prey.
Many observers stayed with the fledgling all afternoon making sure she was ok.
Around 6pm, hawk parents Christo and Amelia showed up on St Brigid's church. It wasn't immediately clear if they knew about the return of their fledgling.
However, the fledgling saw them an began to cry. That caught Amelia's attention and she began calling to the fledgling. Christo also joined in and after a few back-and-forth words, Amelia flew into the park, followed by Christo. They both perched in their favorite locust tree near Avenue B and screamed at the young hawk, who remained perched in a small tree in the same area.
Above, Christo is on the left and Amelia is on the right. I tried to record their hawk conversation, bu there was a lot of noise in the park. The video below captures the fledgling's cries, answered by the parents' hawk screams. Apologies for the sound of human voices and barking dogs...
The hawks carried on like this for at least an hour and their loud vocalizations drew quite a crowd. I've never heard a hawk conversation like this, so it was pretty cool to witness.
I stayed until sunset when all three hawks went off to roost for the night. Fingers crossed this young hawk makes a full recovery from its original injury, the cause of which is still a mystery.
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