I kind of thought my previous post about the Tompkins Square red-tailed hawk fledgling could be my last sighting for the season, but I'm happy to have had another encounter with the hawk since then.
And how cool is this - it perched on the head of the Samuel S. Cox statue next to the chess tables.
The hawk drew some attention while perched there and many passersby took photos.
I couldn't remember ever seeing a hawk perched on the head of the statue before, so I checked my archives, and found that I have a photo of Christo perched there in March 2014:
After taking in the view from the statue, the hawk dove down to some bushes and promptly caught a rat.
Looks pretty big!
The hawk flew the rat up to a tree to readjust its grip before flying off again.
What I like about this angle is the view of the structure of the tail feathers. They're arranged in the shape of two staircases.
The hawk took the rat to another tree where it could eat.
What followed was a sequence of events: the hawk dropped the rat in the
grass, seemed ot consider retrieving it, but instead took off to get a
fresh rat from the place where it caudht the first one.
Failing to nab a second rat, the hawk flew around to all the points where it had been before catching the first rat.
In the end, the hawk returned to the place where it dropped the rat, came to the ground to retrieve it, then took the rat high into a tree where it appeared to stash it. It then flew to a neighboring tree and climbed as high as it could in the leafy canopy where I assume it went to roost for the night.
By that time, the sun had set and I could barely see the hawk in the tree. I'm hoping it enjoyed its left-over rat for breakfast the following morning.
