I've had quite a number of emails reminding me that I'd said on a number of occasions when events with Pale Male, Octavia, and their brood of three were cascading faster than I was able to blog them, that I'd written, To Be Continued....
Therefore here we go with a recap of all the players positions where we left off for the day on 6/15, and what happened later that day!
If you missed the original post here is the link..
http://palemaleirregulars.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-06-21T05:05:00-04:00&max-results=3
Little is on the nest by himself. Prey has been delivered but it hasn't really been "prepared" nor did anyone feed it to him. It appears as if he is mimicking his parents as do most young animals in order to get the gist of how all this works.
So he "flies in".
He modifies his wings for a "landing".
He touches down and sees the prey.
He leaps on the prey! Pauses...it still isn't ready to eat. Why?
We had left Pale Male atop a Fifth Avenue building where he appeared to be intentionally making himself a target for the Mockingbirds...therefore perhaps giving Octavia a chance to hunt for the fledglings with out being hassled? At least we hope that's what is going on as no one has seen Octavia for sometime.
Suddenly both Pale Male and the Mockingbird appear to focus sharply on something in the Park.
Pale Male takes off and disappears into the trees. If you look carefully you can see the Mockingbird's silhouette on the roof.
Medium, happily watching traffic, is perched on a balcony railing several stories up on 952 Fifth Avenue with a crop so full and round he appears to have eaten a volleyball.
Here is part of the street scene that Medium is viewing outside 952.
We've been looking for Large after loosing sight of Pale Male and Stella Hamilton spots her.
Large is many stories up perched on a skinny window ledge.
Her crop is flat and she is begging piteously.
She sees somebody in the sky. Pale Male does a fly by . Optimally he would like her off the dangerous perch above traffic ridden Fifth Avenue and fly after him into the Park.
Large watches Dad circling toward the trees holding the pigeon.
She starts to take off. Ah! Here lies the rub. When Large tries to spread her wings standing longwise on the ledge the wing nearest the window can't be spread properly. It runs into the window.
The wing strike sends her off balance and she almost knocks herself off the ledge. An experienced flyer would just turn face forward in the first place, leap into the air and spread her wings at the same time. Flap. Flap. This doesn't appear to be within Large's expertise yet. Currently she is more afraid of her situation than she is hungry. Time for Dad to get creative.
Pale Male flies in and lands on a same floor balcony south of where Large is perched on the window sill. He has brought the pigeon we watched him prepare on the lateral trunk of a tree in Central Park earlier.
Remember?
Pale Male perches and waits. Large won't come to the Park. Perhaps she will make her way to the balcony.
Large walks towards him, south, on the window ledge. She is begging very loud and very pitifully.
Large gets to the third window section, stops, and does the two tone beg. She doesn't seem willing to go any further. Pale Male waits perched on the balcony.
Large waits and begs.
It's raining harder. It had been muggy and intermittently wet earlier now it's starting to get a little cold and wet. Large begs on the window sill, I'm sorry I wore shorts, and Pale Male stands on the balcony with the pigeon.
Pale Male flies out carrying the pigeon.
And just as he flies right in front of Large....
Pale Male flips over and shows Large that he still has the pigeon.
Then he veers off...
And heads for Central Park, which is just across the street.
I can't see Pale Male for the street trees but according to Large's gaze, Pale Male is circling above the Central Park trees.
Little begins to pace and stare as well as beg.
Large looks over her shoulder at the park and then stares down Fifth Avenue fixedly. It is raining again. I decide to go see what she was staring at downtown.
When I get past the street trees and can see what Large is seeing, I realize Large is staring at her mother, and Octavia is staring at me.
And she keeps staring at me. According to my photos she stared for about a minute and a half. Interesting.
Then something else caught Octavia's attention. She truly is a big beautiful formel. I did hope she didn't think I'd been staring at her fledglings too long.
Pale Male of course goes about his business, as do the fledglings. Pale is used to being stared at. The fledglings knowing no different may think that all fledglings receive stares from humans which are no big deal.
Whereas Octavia likely thinks no such thing.
Octavia's gaze rises above the treeline in the Park.
I walk down toward the Conservatory Waters/Model Boat Pond to see If I can see what she is looking at and remember I've been meaning to take photographs of the progression of buildings again to help readers better visualize what is happening where.
The Woody Allen building is on the left. Woody lived in that building during Pale Male's first few seasons in Central Park, hence the name though he no longer lives in the building. On the right of course is 927, the home of Pale Male's nest.
Now 927 is on the left, north, and the Dr. Fisher building on the right, south. Right of Dr. Fisher is Linda.
Dr. Fisher on the left, Linda is center, then a building which rather merges into Linda and is not visible from the Hawk Bench and the next one down with the beige rectangular lumps on top, I think, is called the Crows. Early on a flock of Crows called that building their own. They were the ones that mobbed Pale Male and his first mate so both ended up in rehab.
There are no Crows in the Park these days. They were all killed by West Nile Virus years ago.
After The Crows and across 72nd street is The Lions. So named for the lion head decoration on its cornice.
Gosh, I'm not sure what that blurry black shape in the sky is.
But before I left the area around the Model Boat Pond, I took one last photograph of the nest just blind. The light was dim and I really couldn't see if anything was going on up there or not.
Sometimes you get lucky.
And when I cropped in on the last photograph and lightened things up I had been lucky. Octavia was making a visit to Little on the nest. Let me crop it down one more time.
Now of course what was never a beauty shot is even more blurred and sandy but if you are interested in behavior it is a jewel.
See the prey (near Octavia's feet) that was lying there some hours ago. Remember some hours ago also Little was "flying in" and "re-killing" it?
It appears that Octavia left it for Little not only in a somewhat unprepared state, she didn't tear it up and feed it to him either. He's supposed to be learning to do this stuff himself.
Note his crop is flat and he is likely hungry but somehow he just didn't get it done. Octavia is looking at Little and Little is looking at the prey but isn't visibly begging.
At 4:39 AM as it is currently, one could even imagine that this young tiercel is looking a little abashed about his lack of effort.
Whatever the case I have no doubt that Octavia made sure he ate whether by his own efforts or by her's.
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
One fledgling hawk gliding on terrace plant of Woody building. Another baby
is actually behind a plant in the corner , which is difficult to see .
Both are crying loudly . Nest is now empty , so third baby is around
here some where .
Kiting just like Mom.
Octavia sitting on the camera at The Metropolitan Muscum.
Little finally did it. Last fledgling off the nest now and sitting in a tree.
Keep scrolling down for the previous post of the day! DB
Little, pre-fledge, with what appears to be a feather stuck to his beak, stands taking in the action from his prime view on 927 Fifth Avenue.
Stella Hamilton reports that "Little", the third eyass, fledged today, Sunday. She sent me a text at 5:27PM...
3rd baby fledged unobserved and is currently on tree behind the men's room of The Boat House.
And when it came time for the fledglings to roost , Stella caught them all on their way...
Fledgling 1 headed to Pilgrim Hill to roost.
Fledgling 2 headed to Pilgrim Hill to roost.
Fledgling 3 headed for Pilgrim Hill to roost.
Courtesy CentralParkNYC
And here we have the East and North faces of Pilgrim Hill.
Pilgrim Hill is south of the Conservatory Water. (Model Boat Pond)
Tangent alert: This hill is used when it snows as the premier sledding hill with public access right smack in the middle of Manhattan.
But in late June it is often the spot where the fledglings sleep at night. I've assumed that a possible parental reason for using this spot is, yes, the numerous trees, but there are plenty of those spots in Central Park but also if a parent hawk is high in a taller tree on top of tall Pilgrim Hill the view of flight paths to the kids would be spectacular. And flighted predators, say a Great Horned Owl, could be conceivably lit by city lights at which time their great advantage of surprise in the dark would be lost.
By the way, a tidbit I've not mentioned for some time, did you know that Pale Male always chooses a branch in which to sleep that has another branch directly above his head. That way if caught napping the flighted predator can't just drill him in the skull as the upper branch is in the way of a dive. I don't know if this is common practice among Red-tails or whether this is a Pale Male thing which he teaches to his mates and fledglings.
How did this piece of arcane minutia come up? When original Pale Male watcher and author of Red-tails In Love, Marie Winn, was writing Central Park In The Dark, she and I would follow Pale Male to discover his roosts in the evening.
Still more episodes from this Central Park nesting season will be coming your way, but in the meantime....
Last night I walked into the laundry room and once again as I had a year or two ago I saw...a tree frog was using her finger and toe suckers to stick to my lighted insect attracting laundry room window for a little night hunting.
Here's a confession. The tree frog looks rather big in the picture, she isn't. I gave her more size in the photo so details would be easier to see. She is really only about an inch and a half long.
Having seen the tree frog and photographed the tree frog I began the big search as to just what kind of tree frog this might be. I thought those yellow legs, hey, hey, easy ID. In this case not happening unless I have a handy dandy noninvasive portable chromosome counter or a cordless frog mic. I don't have either.
What's wrong with me?
In the Eastern United States....but not in the bulk of Maine or Florida, there are two possible tree frog species to which this cutie could belong. She could be the Gray Tree Frog, Hyla versicolor or Cope's Gray Tree Frog, Hyla chrysoscelis. So far their morphology looks to be identical so no hope there as to species but if you can count chromosomes or compare their vocalizations you'll have it.
Mine wasn't saying anything at all.
Now the cool thing about these little guys is that they change color depending on what they are sitting on. Takes about a half hour....but hey, they have time. I did note, much to my disappointment, that frog did not become transparent like the window glass she was sitting on. But then again life sometime just fails to be a Harry Potter book.
Sigh. But the light patch under tree frog's eye wasn't white, it was beige so in some camps it is believed that males have a white spot and the females under eye spot is more pigmented. Note in the photo that spot isn't white. Well we figured something out anyway. Hooorah for us.
Also as to the species issue, in Wisconsin the two species share the same breeding pools so there is hybridization...
And people think science is cut and dried, utterly black and white...not when it comes to life forms it isn't, because life forms aren't.
And by the way there is a current, and rather heated argument going on as to whether it should be Tree Frog or Treefrog.
Never a dull moment!
Happy Hawking or Treefrogging!
Donegal Browne
Her crop is flat and she is begging piteously.
