Christo opts for a frozen dinner

After the sun began to set on Saturday, Christo needed dinner. He'd spent all afternoon watching rats and pigeons frolicking in the park while the brutally cold wind raged, but he didn't make any serious attempts to catch any of them. In the end, he opted for an old dead frozen rat that was already on the ground.



I'd seen the rat earlier in the day and did not know how it came to be there.  At the time, I thought I should dispose of it, but then forgot when I ran off to follow Christo.  One of the biggest dangers to the hawks is eating poisoned rat, so it was worrisome to see Christo opt for this one when he had so many live choices.



Maybe he'd caught it earlier in the day and was just returning to retrieve his meal.  Unfortunately, I don't know.  It seemed so odd that he'd want this gross old thing when he could have had a fresh one, but maybe he just didn't want to exert too much energy hunting on such a bitterly cold day.





In one comical moment, Christo stepped on one end of the stiff-as-a-board rat and it flipped up at him like a rake.  Startled, Christo jumped back and hopped around until he was sure the rat wasn't a zombie come back to life.



He then spent a good deal of time gnawing away at the rat while on the ground.  He did not attempt to fly away with it, maybe because it was too big and stiff to handle up in a tree.  After 20 minutes or so, he abandoned the remains.

GORE ALERT!

Some fellow hawk-watchers and I decided to dispose of the rat.  It had such an undignified end of life anyway and leaving it out there in that state felt wrong.  We kept an eye on Christo over the next couple of days to make sure he didn't look sick.  Thankfully, he seems fine.  The hawks eat nasty stuff like this all the time and it looks worse to us than it does to them, but the fear of poison is real.

Christo in the freezing wind

Saturday's weather was brutally cold.  Despite wearing three pairs of pants, two sweaters, two pairs of socks, insulated boots, a down coat, scarf, hat and two pairs of gloves, I had a hard time enduring the sub-zero wind.  But I had to get out there and make sure our hawks were ok.

The afternoon started with some activity on a fire escape at Avenue A and 7th Street. Christo was all fluffed up to deal with the freezing cold.


 






As the wind picked up, Christo settled in the park.  As the frigid cold tore through his feathers, all I could say was gaaaaahh....!





He could only tuck up one foot at a time.



I swear he wore a pained expression.



There really wasn't much to do on this day except hunker down and try to stay warm.  Rats ran around on the ground, but Christo didn't seem to have the desire to go after them.

 

Dora appeared later in the day.  She will follow in another post...

Water Street falcons

There's been some activity this week down at the 55 Water Street falcon nest box.  A fellow falcon-watcher notified me of their activity, so I went to take a look on Tuesday.  Sure enough, the female (she is apparently called Adele) was perched next to the box.



I took a walk and returned about 45 minutes later, but she was gone.  However, her mate (they call him Frank), was perched on the ledge of a building nearby.  As we watched, he dove from the building and shot down somewhere over Water Street.  Seconds later, the female swooped past the nest box.  Just as she did so, the male appeared about 20-30' out over the river with a pigeon.  Both falcons circled the water, rousing a flock of gulls.

It all happened so fast and I had an inadequate camera, so could not capture the action.  I did manage to get a couple of fuzzy shots of the male flying with the pigeon towards the Brooklyn Bridge.



The Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges are both visible here.



The flock of gulls (about 30 of them) chased the falcons around Pier 11.  In the chaos, the falcon dropped the pigeon in the water.  He tried to dive after it a couple of times, but could not compete with the gulls.  When it was over, both falcons went and perched on the rigging of the Peking at the Seaport.

Female:



Male:



They remained on the Peking for quite a while before flying back towards the harbor.  I lost sight of the male, but the female returned to the nest box where she perched a few minutes, then went into the box and spent quite a bit of time in there.  Could she have laid an egg?  It's impossible to tell from the ground and the nest cam is not on yet, so I've reached out to the building management to see if they can check the camera and let us know.  I'll post an update if I learn anything.

I went to check on the falcons again today and found the female up at the box.  Again, she went inside for about 10 minutes.  I saw downy white feathers fly out of the box, so maybe she was eating something in there.



The wind today was absolutely brutal along the water.  I could barely stand up, and had to brace myself against a railing to keep from being knocked down.  As a result, I couldn't hold the camera steady.

The nest box looks to be sheltered from the wind, and I thought the falcon would remain there, but she surprised me by taking off.  As she leaped up, the freezing wind blew her back towards the building.



I really don't know how she managed to fly in the ferocious wind, but she's a pro.



I'm hoping to have some more interesting updates on these guys in the coming weeks.

See more photos here.

Acrobatic Dora

Dora performed some feats of acrobatics over Avenue A the other day.

The starting position, balance beam...



High jump...



Spread-eagled (heh!) jumping jack...



Followed by a flip...



And a flop...



Ta-da!



Afterwards, she took her place on the winners' podium.

Christo to rats: It's just business

On a recent sunny afternoon, I caught red-tailed Christo having a bath in the, uh, bird bath behind the park offices in Tompkins Square.  He didn't seem to mind people wandering around very near him.



Could you pass the soap?



I saw him take a few gulps of water, something I've only seen once or twice before.  Hawks get all the water they need from the food they eat. 



Speaking of food, Christo lept from the bath to nab a rat a just a few feet away.  In the photo below, you can just barely make out the giant rat hole inside the fence, just behind Christo's tail. 



(The rat is no longer alive in these photos)





And it's off to the big tree, just north of the bird bath, where Christo can often be found having dinner.











Rat. 

It's what's for dinner.



Post-meal, Christo pauses, his crop bulging.

 

I expected him to take it easy the rest of the evening after eating such a big meal, but he only rested a few minutes before flying off to cut sticks for the nest.  Christo is all business.

See more photos here.

Eagle Fest 2016

I went up to Croton Point Park this weekend for Eagle Fest 2016 and really lucked out when I found this bald eagle in its nest.

Heh.

Unfortunately, no wild eagles made an appearance while I was there.  However, there were plenty of other birds in attendance, and a few of them thrilled the crowd with some flying demonstrations.  Here are a few highlights.

Eagle Owl:











Spectacled Owl:



Gyrfalcon:













Harris's Hawk:













See more Eagle Fest photos on my Flickr page.