FLASH!!! FIFTH AVENUE PALE MALE EYASS UPDATES AS THEY HAPPEN 7:08 PM!!!

Friday 6/6/2014 7:08PM  
 Just in from long time hawkwatcher Stella Hamilton!  

Stella reports that one of Pale Male and Octavia's fledglings is high in a Pin Oak on Fifth Avenue.  One foot tucked, she's quiet, taking her ease.  

Fledgling life may be more exciting but it is certainly more tiring than hanging out on the nest.

Fledges, Fledges, Fledges! Plus the 30 Year Old Red-tail Lives On at the Raptor Trust!

Photo courtesy of Rob Schmunk  http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/

Rob Schmunk, long time watcher of the Isolde and Norman at the Cathedral at St. John the Divine nest overlooking Morningside Park, reports the second hatched eyass has fledged.  For more go to http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/

Hawkwatcher Anthony Timens sent a FLASH on the run in Central Park  that  there has been a fledge from Pale Male and Octavia's nest on 927 Fifth Avenue!

And Bon Bon reports two fledges at Washington Square!

Photo courtesy of NYTimes
Remember the banded 27 year old Red-tailed Hawk that was 

Picked up on a rural road and ended up being rehabbed at 

The Raptor Trust?  Betty Jo of California wrote The Trust

and inquired how she was doing.  

 Donna,

 I thought you'd like to see this.  Isn't this great--that old lady is still alive and is benefiting young Red-tails.  We can sure thank the person who picked her up off the road.

And it is wonderful news.  This Red-tailed Grande Dame is still kicking and helping Red-tailed Hawk orphans. 

 Here's the news from The Raptor Trust. 

Hello Betty Jo,

 Thanks for asking about the 27 year old female 

redtail. She is now  30 (!) and doing well.   

She just didn't have the stamina for life 

in the wild. So she was not releasable after rehab.
So she stayed with us and is just fine .  

She even has a purpose in life.  


She fosters and "big sisters" the orphaned red tails

that we get each summer, teaching them red tail 

language and how to catch mice.


They seem to adore her, sitting near to her
all the time,  when they're not practicing flying
in the large flight chamber.


  I agree that the fact that Pale Male 

is still alive is a miracle.   
I cross my fingers every time I think of him




  Best
regards,
Diane Soucy
 The Raptor Trust






  

Stella Hamilton Reports on Pale Male's Nest and the Sheep Meadow Red-tailed Hawk Nest With Hints on How To Get There!

Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/
                  Octavia is left and Pale Male is right.

 An on the spot report,  from longtime hawkwatcher Stella Hamilton-- Stella was also, let me add,  a stalwart protester back in 2004 during the days before Pale Male and Lola were allowed to rebuild their nest on 927 Fifth Avenue.

It's Thursday , 4/24 /14 , 4:30 pm . Windy but gorgeous day . Pale Male is soaring , while Octavia stands in the middle of the nest . I feel she wants to stretch a bit . Did not bring Stellascope today, so can't see if babies are walking about yet . Lots of meat pulling and feeding observed mid nest today.  It was to the left and right of nest  last Sunday .

P.S. I also spoke to Stella on the phone.  She thinks from the feeding patterns she's observed, that the Fifth Avenue nest may hold three eyasses this year.

After checking out Pale Male and Octavia's nest, Stella then took the short walk down to the Sheep Meadow Red-tailed Hawk nest.

Photo by Stella Hamilton  4:50PM  4/24/2014

See the nest in the crouch of the tree?  Stella reports that the nest is about 30 feet from the ground and the current hawk in residence is Mom.  While Stella was watching Dad arrived with dinner for Mom, prey not immediately recognizable, and they switched.  Mom flew off to eat and Dad kept the nest warm.

For those who would rather find the Sheep Meadow nest without asking around too much, here is Stella  Hamilton's clarification to the usual directions.  Often if one asks where this nest is, one is told...near the volley ball court.  

Well... as it turns out there are two volley ball courts.

There is a concrete court and a sand volley ball court.  The nest is near the concrete court which is painted green and has no net across it so some don't even realize it is a volley ball court-- which adds to the general confusion.  If there are no obvious hawkwatchers gawking up a tree,  Stella advises sitting in one of the benches at this court, then scanning  the trees,  and you will spot the nest.

Happy Hawking!

Donegal Browne

COPULATION! Pale Male and Octavia Do It, The Albany Eagle Nest, and the Pond That Never Ever Freezes

Photo http://www.palemale.com/

Pale Male and Octavia copulate on one of the very handy for the purpose light fixtures on the Carlyle Hotel.  

And it isn't even  Valentines Day yet.

The games afoot on Fifth Avenue!  

Fingers crossed for a glorious season.

The Search for the Albany Bald Eagle's Nest.

According to the Wisconsin DNR Bald Eagle Map,  there are supposedly two Eagles nests in Green County.  

(There are very likely more Eagle nests than two but no one has told the DNR that as the local farmers aren't at all partial to the DNR showing up on their land and in their minds or possibly in truth bossing them around.)

Well the other day I got a tip that there was an Eagle's nest outside the small town of Albany near the water treatment plant.  

Alright!  I could contact the DNR as to finding it but what if the DNR didn't know about it yet?  The farmer whose land it was on, would be very unhappy with me and I wouldn't be getting within a mile of it.

I needed some genealogy introductions and there is no substitute for a local farm boy's expertise in these things.  

I talked to my friend Mike Albright, who has helped me through this sticky wicket before.  He grew up on a farm not that far from Albany and his parents still live there.  

Mike agreed to drive around with me today to try spotting the nest and if we saw it, he'd  do the necessary genealogy conversations with the farmers.

Sure enough, without leaves to obscure the nest, there it was way, way, way over there near the river, across a very large field, was the iconic cup shaped nest.  Any public roads to get us closer?  

Of course not, we looked. 

Now perhaps it doesn't look all that far away in the photo but this picture was taken with a zoom lens.  Trust me it is a lengthy trek from the road.  If one can get permission to trek it that is.

Typically, it isn't easy to actually figure out who owns any particular chunk of property so we drive around scrutinizing  mailboxes looking for names that might have some connection to people Mike knows.

We turn into a long driveway and head up toward the barn in which a man dressed for the weather is just carrying a large bucket full of something through the door.  Mike gets out and waits.

One can't just walk up to the barn and call out. Nope. One waits. 

Eventually the man comes out of the barn with a now empty bucket.  Mike waits for him to walk up to him.  He then says who he is and suggests he might know his father.  They chat.  Turns out the man not only knows Mike's father he also buys hay from Mike's brother.  Excellent.  He's been placed.  Smiles all round.

Then comes the explanation about how we saw this Eagle nest, we'd like to take pictures of it,  and did he happen to know who owned  the land over there by the river?

Hay Bob, what he's called around the Albright dinner table as Bob is a common name and this Bob does buy hay from brother Ron, certainly does know who owns that land.  Take that road, go round this way, can't miss it.

Sure do thank you.  We motor off.

It's about an hour to sunset and a flock of geese flying with purpose passes over us.  My mind goes click.  There is water here somewhere.

Now keep in mind the temperature has been hovering around zero or below for like forever around here and every body of water is frozen solid unless it is at the foot of dam or is very fast river.  Hmmm.

We follow Hay Bob's directions and turn into another farm yard.  It is time for chores so this farmer too is making his way toward the barn.  Mike gets out.  The genealogy conversation ensues.  I wait in the car.  

They chat.  I look around.  

Wait just a minute there is a pond across the road and it is definitely not frozen or under a couple feet of snow like everything else.  

I KNEW IT.  I knew there had to be open water the geese where heading for at this time of day.

The guys chat.  I sit some more. 

More Geese come cruising in and land in the pond. 

Mike and the latest farmer talk about Hay Bob, brother Ron, Mike's dad, and the eagles.

Turns out the farmer says one of the Eagles got a goose yesterday.  Geez.  That must have been some tussle, an Eagle taking a goose.

Smiles. 

Lots of them and the farmer tells Mike we can use his lane, a dirt road currently under loads of snow that bisects his field and heads right for the Eagle's nest.

Mike says, thanks so much but when we come we'll just pull off the road and walk in.  Would hate to get stuck and mess up your road.  

We get more points.  I look at the distance, the depth of snow, and the amount of camera equipment.  It will be a trek without question but worth it.

The light is beginning to fade.  More geese into that mysterious unfrozen pond across the road.  It must have a monster spring under it.

I just have to ask.  Why isn't the pond frozen?  Is there a spring?

Big smile.  Indeed there is and the pond has never frozen within living memory.

How cool is that?  One never knows what marvels might await once one steps outside the door.

Mike gets in the car.  I ask, so what's the farmer's name?

He didn't give it so I didn't ask.

Really?  Must be another rule.

I stop, once on the road again, for a few more pictures of the nest.  It is far far away.

  Tantalizing.


Once I get home, I load the pictures onto the computer and crop the nest closer.

Look very closely at the left top edge of the nest.  I do believe there might be an eagle head resting on the rim of the nest.  And there appears to be the slightest touch of yellow, the only bit of yellow in the photo, where the beak would be.


Is it possible that Mama Eagle is already sitting the nest?


MORE TO COME, INDEED!


Donegal Browne

Red-tailed Hawk Nests and Prescribed Burns, Invasive Phragmites, the Mystery Bird, White-crowned Not White Striped? And the Great Osprey Rescue And Isolde at the Cathedral

photo courtesy of www. palemale.com Octavia feeds the thriving three on the Fifth Avenue nest shortly after Pale Male delivered dinner.  Here we have the classic shape of a Red-tailed Hawk tree nest.  And as it turned out there was a female up there and she was none too happy about the human company working on the prescribed burn not far away.  She came screeching off the nest, did a few mid-level circles, and then went back to the nest,  plumped down, and glared. Note there are no photos of her doing this as we were far too busy keeping the fire away from the nest area to take time out for photos. The nest sitter's mate then appeared on the scene, not so much to yell at us but rather to perch in a tree and wait for any prey that might be flushed  out of cover by the fire. As I mentioned briefly before, at every burn I did there was at least one, I expect experienced Red-tail, who appeared on the scene the moment a fire was lighted or even before.  No dummies, they know that a fire exposes prey and they're ready to take advantage of the circumstances. Dale Dean of Landscape Restoration explains the next step of the burn plan.  This was a 140 acre wetland burn with a 4 million dollar house in the middle.  One never wants to loose control of a fire but it was particularly crucial in this case to say the least.  All went very well. A week later things had really begun to get green but this nest in a very tall oak, oaks leaf out slightly later, is still visible from a distance. Neither hawk seemed distressed by any of the proceedings. In fact as soon as the fire was lit, the male positioned himself in a handy tree poised for hunting.   Phragmites (Phragmites australis subsp. australis), right frame, is a dreadful invasive in U.S. wetlands.  Not only is it vigorous but it exudes two toxins which destroy the seedlings of desirable native plants.  It takes two to three burns to eradicate.   Last season on my first burn, I'd scared the pants off myself, when I'd lit this patch which was twice the height it is this season, and it went up in a huge wall of fire in seconds. This year with the very wet Spring, which pushed many burns closer to the cutoff of May 15th, when things had already begun to green up, it was impossible to set it alight at all.   It was very disappointing not to get a second crack at it and perhaps eradicate it from that area.  I found another Red-tailed nest a few days later.  Can you see it. Look carefully at the nest and it appears there is at least one eyass in it. NEXT UP THE MYSTERY BIRD! Obviously we have a Chipping Sparrow on the left, but what is the bird on the right? In sunlight the bird's blue is, or is similar to an Indigo Bunting.  If this is an Indigo Bunting why isn't he blue all the way down? The full strength indigo color is showing on a bit of his wing.  Is he leucistic? Or upon thought, I'm betting he's a male Indigo Bunting who is molting. AND NEXT...JUST BECAUSE I'VE NOT FOCUSED ON A THIS PARTICULA CHARACTERISTIC BEFORE..   Yes, a White-crowned Sparrow...  But why is he called a White-crowned Sparrow.  Why not a Striped Crown Sparrow for instance? Because his "crown" actually is white, not striped.    From blog contributor Robin of Illinois....  The great osprey rescue By Jackie Jadrnak / Journal North Reporter on Wed, May 15, 2013   http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/05/15/news/the-great-osprey-rescue.html SANTA FE – Badly tangled in fishing line, the female osprey dangled upside down – perhaps for a couple of days – while her mate fretted and called from their nest and the air above. An outdoorsman getting ready for a canoe outing with friends down the Rio Chama on Sunday happened to spot her and – talk about luck – he and a friend on the trip happened to be wildlife biologists with an expertise in raptors. There’s no way they were going to leave her there. Bob Murphy, on his day off from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, cuts a fishing line that was tangled around a female osprey near Heron Lake in northern New Mexico. A group of people spotted and rescued her on Sunday, May 12, 2013. The opsrey is being treated at The Wildlife Center in Espanola. “I thought she was dead,” said Dale Stahlecker, who has a business in Santa Fe. But then he saw her move. Hustling back to the canoe put-in site, Stahlecker told his fellow canoeists they had to do a rescue. “I thought maybe someone fell in the river,” said Bob Murphy, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, who does a lot of raptor work in his free time. Instead of launching canoes, the friends launched a four-hour effort that brought together helpers ranging from an electric company linesman to personnel at Heron Lake State Park, where the trapped osprey was dangling about 60 feet up a Ponderosa pine. “It really was a big group effort,” Murphy said. “People from completely different walks of life were coming together.” The first issue was how the heck to get her down. Stahlecker called some friends in the area, who in turn called around to other people they knew. State park personnel brought a ladder, but it reached only halfway to the first branches on the towering pine. A linesman with the local electric utility offered a 50-foot expandable pole, thinking they could use it to cut the fishing line holding the bird, while others gathered tarps to catch her if she fell. But the pole was about 10 feet too short. And the area was too steep for a bucket truck. It was time for Murphy to climb the tree. In a telephone interview, you could almost hear him verbally shrug. “I’ve climbed a lot of trees to raptor nests,” he said. The linesman provided Murphy with “pole irons,” a metal iron strapped on the lower leg with a spike just beyond the heel that sticks into the tree and helps support a climber. State park workers provided a sturdy rope, and canoeists came up with carabiners, which combined to provide a harness, along with safety and belaying lines that provided security for Murphy’s ascent. “If you fall, it’s only a foot or so,” he said of the system, adding that it took only about 15 minutes up the tree and five minutes down. “The worst thing is the ants crawling on the tree and biting your arms.” While the osprey was obviously disturbed by his presence and started flapping, Murphy said he was able to grab her feet, pull her close, use a knife to cut the monofilament that was coiled around her feet and up to her shoulder and neck, then carefully place her into a backpack for the trip back down. “On one of her toes, there was a lot of scraping from the monofilament, but the bottoms of her feet looked good. … Her eyes were bright,” he said. In the darkness of the backpack, “she never moved,” he added. The rescuers took the osprey to The Wildlife Center in Española, where “we think that she’s going to be OK,” development director Cheryl Bell said with some caution Tuesday. The ability to use their feet to snag fish for food is crucial for ospreys, Stahlecker said. Without the ability to grip, this osprey couldn’t be released back into the wild. Bird improving If all goes well, the bird will be released in a week, Bell said. Circulation appears to be coming back to the toe that was most strangled by the line, she said. The osprey also has neurological problems from dangling upside down for so long. “She kind of shakes and does funny gripping things with her foot,” Bell said. “But she’s improving. We’re feeding her with a tube down her throat. … She is getting amino acids and supplements and today bits of salmon,” she said. The bird likely got dehydrated and malnourished by not feeding for a couple of days, Bell said, noting that tube feeding is needed because ospreys generally won’t eat fish they didn’t pull live out of the water themselves. This osprey was found Sunday, May 12, 2013, near Heron Lake hanging from a tree by her nest. She was incapacitated by fishing line tangled around her legs and sent to the Wildlife Center in Espanola for rehab. (Photo by Dale Stahlecker) Ospreys, which typically weigh 3 to 4 pounds and have a wingspan of 63 inches, showed up at Heron Lake in 1989, Stahlecker said, likely as spinoffs from a population that grew around Durango, Colo. Now, they have at least 19 territories around that body of water, he said. “They were really affected by DDT,” Murphy said of that pesticide. “Their population crashed, but they made a tremendous recovery.” This isn’t the first bird The Wildlife Center has seen tangled in fishing line, Bell said. “We had one with the line wrapped so tightly around the leg, the leg fell off,” she said. “Every time I walk around that lake, I’m picking up fishing line.” “We’ve got to get the message home to people that they can’t be messy,” Stahlecker said, explaining that the bird saw fishing line as good nest material, and it ended up “terribly tangled” around her. While the Mother’s Day rescue may have saved the osprey’s life, it may have ruined her chances to raise any young this year. Although Murphy was unable to see if the nest in the Ponderosa pine held any eggs, the biologists said her time off the nest would have killed any embryos.    Photo courtesy of  http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/  Having fed the eyasses Isolde whips off the nest with a partial pigeon.  Check out the adventures of Isolde and the New Guy (or is it Norman after all) on Rob's blog, http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/ HAPPY HAWKING!!!!  Donegal Browne

Octavia and the "kids", Prescribed Prairie Burns, and Vince of Fordham, his New Girl, and the Bad Choice Location

 

 photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/

 Octavia feeds the eyasses on Pale Male's Fifth Avenue nest.

From Chris Lyons, major watcher of the Fordham Hawks currently nesting on Webster Avenue-

Just saw one of those little white blobby things with a black spot in the center--from quite a good distance away, through binoculars, on the top floor of the building I work in, but I've been doing this a while now.  Popped up, looked around, settled back down again.  The female is sitting at the edge of the nest, looking down,  seemingly quite pleased with herself.  She is mercifully spared anticipation of the difficulties yet to come.

So normally joyous news, but now our preferential option--no hatch, and our new queen decides this nest site sucks, and goes somewhere better next time (like back to the campus) has failed to come about.  So we're stuck with option 2--search and rescue.  We don't even know the apartment number belonging to that window yet.  That's where the search part comes in.

Like I just told Bobby, I'm even concerned about the PRE-fledging stage, since you know that as they get close to taking off for the first time, they like to get athletic, and move around, from branch to branch, or ledge to ledge, and that's really not a good idea in this case.  I hope that rather narrow metal structure is going to be enough space for their pre-flight workouts. 

I've got a potential contact number for the building management--may be a false lead, but I'll pursue it.  They have got to know what's going on.   More as the story develops.

Fingers crossed Chris, keep us posted!

Sorry about the lag in posts, for the last seven days I've been doing prescribed burns of prairies and wetlands. It has been a trip.  

And nearly every burn had a Red-tailed Hawk nest on the periphery.  These areas were Red-tail hunting ground which included a copse of trees for a nest and hunting perches with a prairie spread out before it


The latest was a prescribed burn of 125 acres of wetland prairie. One doesn't want to burn down anything accidentally of course but this particular wetland had a four million dollar house in the middle of it.  

Photographs of rural Red-tailed Hawk nests and  aforementioned burns will have to wait as the photo transfer function of blogger is down.  Sigh.

And lest I forget, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair who stopped in for a bite at the feeder. 
 

From Robin of Illinois by way of Jackie of Tulsa--

 A BEAVER CAM!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ellis-bird-farm-far-beaver-lodge

It's inside the lodge, and a beaver has been on and off the screen.

MUCH MORE TO COME, PARTICULARLY WHEN THE PHOTO FUNCTION IS BACK UP!

Donegal Browne

Pale Male's Earlier Poisoned 2012 Fledglings Return to Central Park!

       Photo courtesy of Henry Willson / Senior Staff Photographer, Columbia Spectator
  Cathy Horvath releases one of Pale Male and Zena's previously poisoned Fledglings in Central Park.

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/10/15/young-hawks-return-wild-after-battle-rat-poison

I received an email this evening for Ellen Smithson, who recently relocated from Tucson, Arizona to NYC and who just happened to be enjoying Central Park when she stumbled upon the release of the two fledglings of Pale Male and Zena.  They who survived a bout of secondary rat poisoning under the care of Cathy and Bobby Horvath of WINORR, Wildlife in Need of Rescue and Rehabilitation.  

Ellen wrote in part-

I was taking a walk in the Ramble when I saw a long haired park ranger and a dark haired woman painting the toe nails of a large bird.  

I thought to myself, "Only in New York City".

There were others looking on during this phenomena so I too stopped to watch what might happen next.  

It was one of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen. Two hawks  flew from the hands of a person into the freedom of  air and sunshine.  A sun that flashed off the gold in their feathers.  

Two hawks which were poisoned by anonymous people who'd set out to kill rats and who had been brought back to life by people who cared enough to do all the tending it took to get to this spot on this day.  It was a blessing.

I was told that there wasn't any guarantee that these birds wouldn't be poisoned again and that, I found, a very tragic thought.  How can people be so thoughtless?  Is there no other way? 

I then got my first look at Pale Male later.  I was befriended by some  very nice hawk people and we saw him fly over the younger hawks. I guess he recognized them as he didn't chase them away, which I'm told he would have done if he didn't know them.  

I think I'm going to like New York City after all. 

 Many thanks Ellen, and if you can be intrigued by people painting nail polish on a hawk's talons and wait around for the second act.  I think you definitely have the stuff to "like" the Big Apple.  Keep in touch!

Opera Star the third fledgling of this year's nest on 927 Fifth Avenue is believed to have succumbed to secondary rat poisoning,  as likely, did his mother, Zena.

A few of the  known lost to secondary rat poison are Ginger Lima, Pale Male's mate before Zena,   Hawkeye, mate of Rose, at the Fordham nest, Athena, mate of Atlas of the Triborough nest, and Intrepid, the beautiful Riverside Park Mom, who had lost three eyasses still in their natal feathers on the nest, due to secondary rat poisoning in a previous season. 

Though Pale Male's fledglings were poisoned while in or around Central Park by eating already poisoned rats, they were also released back to the area.  There are any number of reasons for doing this which include their familiarity with their natal territory and the fact that when it comes down to it, secondary poisoning is a problem all over the country. 

 Though Central Park has reputedly done what they can to remove poison, there are buildings which face the park which undoubtedly have not.

 Nowhere is truly safe for them. 

BESIDES...another reason why Central Park would be best, at least in my opinion,  is as these birds were so young when they were poisoned they had not had the time to be trained thoroughly by their super hunter father Pale Male in his many hunting techniques.  The ways of hunting are not innate for Red-tailed hawks.  They must be apprenticed to hunting by their parents.  The better the training  the more chance they have of surviving their first year, when a very high percentage of  young Red-tailed hawks die.

I'm hoping that Pale Male will pick up where he left off  as hunting mentor.  I realize that in young Red-tailed fathers the training of their offspring may come from hormonal urges.  A hormonal level that after six months Pale Male may not feel.  But just perhaps Pale in his many seasons of training young hawks, has the cognizance to know what they need and will do it because he knows it needs doing not just because his hormones tell him so. 

Donegal Browne