THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL PARK NEST PLOT THICKENS

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAT GONZALEZ--MARCH 27th, 2009

Donegal:

I was very excited when I read about the next in the building at the Botanical Garden. Funny, I was telling my best friend that the best, and safest place on the grounds they could build a nest was at the building because the folks there respect wildlife and there is 24 hour security.

I do have a question. A while back I sent you the attached photo of the largest nest I've ever seen. I came across it by accident while at the garden. Is this a hawk nest? I took the photo on March 27th. What do you think?

Pat

First off Pat, as it is tough to tell from a photograph, could you take a gander at approximate size for me?

Two, it could be a nest in progress as a second choice for the season or maybe it has been a catch place for twigs and small branches that have broken from the tree, landed, and then gotten hung up.

But let's think nest for now.

A Red-tail nest not only has lateral branches but the hawks interweave a great many twigs from top to bottom as well as from side to side to keep things together. This "structure" doesn't seem to have much in the way of top to bottom sticks. Did the Great Horned Owls run off the RT pair and it was left unfinished? Was it a second choice nest that was never used? Or was it an active nest that is now just quite old and falling apart?

The plot thickens!

D.B.

P.S. Quite a number of posts today, so keep scrolling down until you find one you've read already.