Francois Portmann's Snowy Owl and Crows in NYC, Lincoln Speaks with the NY Daily News, a Pale Male Update and Frisky the Opossum

Photo by Francois Portmann

http://www.fotoportmann.com/birds/2012/02/29/snowy-owl-crows/

Photo by Francois Portmann

http://www.fotoportmann.com/birds/2012/02/29/snowy-owl-crows/

 A Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) is harassed by a trio of local Crows on a stretch of coastal dunes within city limits. Ultimately, she didn’t seem too concerned about the 15 min episode and settled for the day. F. P.

I do wonder if the parties concerned are up on the other species language and after doing their required scolding duty then came to some kind of understanding.

And Francois isn't just using the pronoun "she" as a  raptor courtesy to Queen Elizabeth I,  male Snowy Owls are more uniformly white than the females.


Do click on Francois' link to see the rest of the Crow vs Snowy Owl sequence and much more gorgeous bird photography besides.
http://www.fotoportmann.com/birds/2012/02/29/snowy-owl-crows/

And from longtime hawkwatcher Kat Herzog, who has spent many an hour observing from the Hawk Bench at the Model Boat Pond in Central Park, a Pale Male Update--
 

I heard about the sightings of more hawks than Pale and the new female but I'm not sure about that.  I've seen him with the new Hawk.  She is following him everywhere but though they are flying in circles together - the do not have their legs down and they have not been seen mating.

(Dropped talons during courting flights are a precursor to copulation in Red-tailed Hawks. D.B.)

The New Girl and Pale have gone to the nest - separately and together....bringing budding twigs.  We shall see.  I'm sure Pale will start fulfilling his destiny and start mating soon....unless he is "playing the field" and looking for the best female around.  The new female has a red tail but a lot of yellow in her iris....but she is quite adamantly courting him.  She following him and he staying at arms (wings?) length.  And, so, a new melodrama begins.....

Indeed it does Kat.

 I believe that when Pale Male does make his choice, she will be his sixth mate.

NEXT UP-- LINCOLN KARIM TELL HIS SIDE OF THE STORY TO THE NY DAILY NEWS

 
 Photographer Lincoln Karim’s feathers ruffled by arrest after death of Pale Male's hawk girlfriend

The photographer who has obsessively chronicled celebrity hawk Pale Male is squawking over his arrest by state wildlife officials.

Lincoln Karim says he was just trying to get state Department of Environmental Conservation officers to take the body of Lima, Pale Male's mate, when he was collared in Central Park Monday night.
Karim said he was held for more than six hours in the Central Park Precinct stationhouse after being arrested by a DEC police officer.

Karim had collected Lima’s body in Central Park on Sunday.

 MORE...

 

And another related story from International Business Times--

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/306277/20120228/pale-male-lima-dead-hawk.htm

Frisky, the new Opossum in town.

 

 On the 28th Pyewackit the house cat went running to the patio door and ducked under the curtain for a look.  When I turned on the back light expecting one or both of the Bird Bath Cats, what should I find but a new Opossum in the neighborhood.  This one far more active than Fluffy who had previously been frequenting the feeding floor.  Fluffy is a large, tough looking Opossum who takes his time and isn't above snarling so I  get a look at his many sharp teeth if he catches a glimpse of me.  Needless to say I don't intrude on his personal space in any way. 

 

 When I attempted to ease the glass door open so I could  use the flash to get a sharper photo of Frisky, Opossums are notoriously hard of hearing, she looked up and trotted briskly around the corner of the house.  No teeth baring in this case,  which was nice.

 

As you have no doubt gathered from previous blogs, the negative behavior of Wisconsin animals upon seeing me approach compared with those in  NYC was beginning  to give me a complex.

Donegal Browne