Finding Pale Male and Octavia's Fleglings Plus the Mocking Bird Wars

 Little pounces on his "prey", a delivery dead on arrival courtesy of  his parents.  

(The weather today was similar to Okinawa in the rainy season.  It is very warm, very wet, and the air is so full of moisture the world is grey.  When I arrived at the Hawk Bench to wait for Stella Hamilton Bench was empty.  A very uncommon occurrence  at this stage of the season.  Ordinarily with two days since two fledged and one still  on the nest there would be a crowd waiting for number three to go off but one had to be quite intrepid to brave today's weather.)

                                                                Then he "kills" it.

Makes sure it is dead.

                  He then does a flapping happy dance...

                                       And kills it again.

Something catches his eye.  Parental activity?

Stella arrives and we decide to search for the fledglings.  This is often done either by last known perches texted by previous watchers or by ear.  One listens for the sound of fledglings begging and or the scolding of smaller birds.  In this case the scolding is often being done by Mocking Birds and Blue Jays.

We walk up towards Fifth Avenue.    Little is no longer in view from the ground here.

No fledgling on the side railing of the nest building.  Large had been on some other buildings to the north so we head for those and Stella who has great ears, hears begging.

 We're on the sidewalk craning our necks, scanning any possible perches on the buildings, listening for more begging, and when we get to 952 Fifth Avenue... BINGO!

 There's who I take to be Medium sitting of the railing of 952 and watching the traffic.  He has a very round full crop.

See what I mean about his crop.  It looks like he swallowed a ball.  He is very very full.

And then Medium looks at us.   What an astonishingly cute face he has.

He watches some people get into a cab.

 Then Medium appears to be looking down onto the terrace.  Does he have some left over dinner down there?  By the look of his crop he might want to wait awhile.

And then he's looking down at us again.  He likely knows our faces from all the  time he spent on the nest looking around and all the time we spent on the Hawk Bench looking at him.

Then there is a tremendous amount of ruckus.  Pale Male flies by and into the park chased by screaming Mocking Birds.

Pale Male lands on the handy lateral trunk of a tree with his prey.

The Mocking Birds gather for an attack.

 Here they come and they aren't fooling around!

MUCH MORE TO COME!