Thursday, March 06, 2008

Pale Male, Lola-Sticks on the Nest, Jr., and Charlotte


Pale Male atop the Carlyle Building, keeping an eye on the nest in a stiff wind.
Temperature: 43F. (It was supposed to be up to 54F. Tsk, tsk.)
Wind: Variable Gusts up to 40MPH
Sunny

2:44PM The nest looks empty.


2:46PM The word goes up from the Bench. Pale Male has arrived on the Carlyle.


2:51PM Lo and behold, the nest isn't empty after all. Lola comes out of the bowl. According to the hawk watchers on the Bench today, no one has reported Lola staying the night yet but she certainly has begun to look nesty. It could happen any day now.
(UPDATE: Not only could it, it did. Lincoln Karim reports that Lola stayed on the nest this evening, Thursday, instead of leaving to roost elsewhere. The hatch countdown begins!)

2:57PM She stands in the bowl looking around for several minutes and then adjusts a few twigs.

2:58PM Then she gets back in with just her head showing and scopes the area, I'm wondering if she has an egg in there..

2:59PM Then she gets up, head in bowl and does something for about a minute. Turning an egg?

Pale Male is still on the Carlyle light.

3:07PM He's looking down at something very fixedly.

A pair of Mourning Doves are sitting below Pale Male on the railing of Shipshape. Have they noticed Pale? Evidently they have as when the second picture is taken, it is of an empty railing. But then Pale Male's spot on the Carlyle has also suddenly become empty. He's flown south on Madison Avenue.

Lola preens.

Then she watches something very high that can't be seen by humans on the Bench.
More preening.

Back into the bowl but only half down.

3:39PM Then she gets up turns and disappears into the nest. No Redtails in sight.

Though the Robins are at work. How far away can Spring be when the Robins are pulling worms?

A thank you to Brett Odom for sending in this current photo of Pale Male Jr. and Charlotte's nest site at 888 7th Avenue. As you can see he has the optimum viewing spot. Which made me wonder just how Charlotte and Jr. were doing. Time to take a hike to the south end of the Central Park.

Fifth Avenue is on the one side of the park and the 888 nest is across the park and into the west side of town. I chose Central Park South to cross over, just in case Charlotte and Jr. might be doing some hanging around the old nest site on the Trump Parc. And to my surprise, upon looking up, there was a Red-tail circling. Possibly Junior.

Whoever it was, was circling into the trees and then out again. At least I thought so, but then I got the inkling that this was a larger bird. Charlotte?

Another pass.

Aha! It is Charlotte and Jr. and they are doing reverse circles with each other. One clockwise, the other counter clockwise.

They are beautiful and no doubt, well bonded.

Then off they go higher and further away, until they are out of sight.

Then from behind the Trump Parc, a V of geese appears.
Just one more sign of the Spring migration. Eggs, soon there will be eggs!
Donna Browne

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