Red-tail Hawk Update--The Thompkins Square Brown-tails

Photograph by Francois Portmann www.fotoportmann.com/

Photographer and Hawkwatcher Francois Portmann, managed to find and photograph both the Thompkins Square Park Brown-tails.


Photograph by Francois Portmann

Francois believes the hawk with the heavy belly band, above and in the next three photographs is a female.
Photograph by Francois Portmann

He reports that she's larger than the other bird. On a previous sighting this bird was perched in the park while the other, who seems fond of pigeon hunting, flew over. She called to him.

Photograph by Francois Portmann


She looks to be quite a dark bird, rather like Charlotte or Norman. Who, where many hawks are cream or white, these birds are more beige.


Photograph by Francois Portmann

Though as she's caught a rat, perhaps part of the dark effect may have to do with the time of day.

Photograph by Francois Portmann


This bird, Francois reports, is smaller than the first and likely a tiercel.


Photograph by Francois Portmann


True to his penchant for flushing pigeons, he does it again.


Photograph by Francois Portmann


To the railing he goes, with something in his crop already. He stares up, perhaps deciding how best to get one of those pigeons.


Photograph by Francois Portmann

I love this photograph. His posture makes him look like he is levitating in the way Rudolph Nuryev did during a leap. Though this guy does it as easily as breathing. Note the size of his toes and "ankle". Compare them with the Formel's in the photo of her that is fourth from the top.


I hope to see much more of these two.





RED-TAIL HUNTING IN THE SNOW





James Blank who has contributed Turkey and Hawk photographs to the blog, unfortunately saw an interesting Red-tail incident the other day when he didn't have his camera with him. (Let that be a lesson to all of us.)





After the latest snowstorm save one, Mr. Blank saw a mature Red-tail sitting in a tree overlooking an open area quite near where a crew was taking a jackhammer to frozen ground, looking for some cable or other. Red-tails being very patient when they feel they have the prospect of a good thing, sat there for some time. Then suddenly the hawk swooped out of the tree and toward the ground to make a grab. Her talons went down, there was a great puff of snow, the talons came up empty, she then did a three or four contact hopping motion and finally came up with a good sized rodent for her lunch. Which she flew away with to eat in peace.



An experienced hawk, she no doubt knew that excavation equipment tends to send rodents out of their burrows and was waiting for that to happen. But on that day, there was quite a number of inches of snow on the ground so did the rodent appear above the snow so the hawk could see it and then catch it? Or can hawks as owls do, listen for prey under snow and then make sightless grabs through that snow?

I'll ask John Blakeman.

Donegal Browne

P.S. Mr. Portmann wrote that he did see a downtown hawk collect a London Plane fruit. The fruits of the London Plane are about half the size of a Sycamore fruit but also have the fluff inside them. No more details on this as yet but I've asked.

Another Broken Red-tail Beak and TURKEYS!

Photograph by Francois Portmann, www.fotoportmann.com/

With the Riverside formel having a broken beak, Francois remembered that back in January, 2008, he'd taken a photograph of a brown-tail with a broken beak on a roof downtown. He went into his archives and came up with it. This hawk's beak seems to have lost only the tip. Though it would impair tearing at least this bird should have the ability to pinch food between the front edges of the maxilla and mandible and pull.

There has been some conversation, as John Blakeman had never seen an example in the Midwest, as to whether or not this beak breaking problem may well be far more of an urban hawk issue then it was elsewhere.

The only example I've seen here in Wisconsin was that of an immature Bald Eagle who had lead poisoning and not being lucid had flown straight into a sign. Somehow I don't think that counts.

I suspect that far more beaks are broken in a mix of gusty wind and hard buildings within the urban environment, particularly in adults, than hawks running into say, trees, here.

Urban fledglings on the other hand, would certainly be at higher risk for the accident. Being novice fliers, they might just loose control
periodically and be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Photograph by James Blank
This turkey is a bit like the turkeys in the parks of New York City. She lives at Old World Wisconsin, and is habituated to humans. She doesn't have to worry a bit about hunters or much of anything else as long as she stays within the fences of the reenactment farmsteads.



These turkeys on the other hand aren't habituated to humans. Mr. Blank, the Wisconsin photographer, called to let me know there was a large flock of turkeys just standing around in a big open field out in the country, foraging. Excellent, I started pulling on my boots. Now getting there was another matter--this involved complicated directions (at least complicated to me) and snow covered country roads. But I got there!

At that point the 16 turkeys were standing behind a hedgerow of brush. Not as good perhaps as being completely in the open but these were much closer to the road, than the usual flocks I run across. I pulled over, got the camera and then made my big mistake.

What did I do?

I turned off the engine of the truck. Oh yeah. I hadn't realized that turkeys are particularly cued to running or not running engines. 16 heads went up, and the turkey trot for the trees began.

The four in the photo above were the end of the line merging

into this group, some of whom had already made it into the trees.

Going...

Going...

Oops, there are still a few trotting through the depression behind the hedgerow.

GONE!

Donegal Browne