Pale Male and His Kids Find Dinner

There are three graphic videos in this posting. I watched Pale Male, our Central Park celebrity red-tailed hawk, dining on pigeon on June 30, after repeatedly calling to his two youngsters to "come 'n' get it!" On July 7, I saw one of his youngsters raiding a robins' nest, and on July 9, I saw a Pale Male youngster eating a starling.

On July 7, after I finished a day of background work in Queens, I return to Manhattan and got off the train at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue. I saw Woody, then walked north to Conservatory Pond to look for Pale Male's kids. I found one sitting above the tables at the outdoor cafe east of the water.

The young hawk looked around, spotted something, then flew near the Alice in Wonderland statue and perched briefly ...

... before returning just north of the cafe, where it attacked a robins' nest. The young hawk ate the robin nestlings, as I saw his father do last year so many times, as the hysterical robins cried and bombarded the predator to no avail.

I do not recommend this video to any who are upset by violence in nature. I almost couldn't watch, although I did take the video (which is very jumpy in spots). These hawks are so beautiful, but they can be brutal.

The bird then flew to a tree just south, where the youngster was joined by the sibling. The sibling had a crop the size of a cantaloupe, indicating the young hawk had also eaten very well. When I left, the two birds were perched, one atop the other, in the tree.

On July 9, a Pale Male kid ate starling. I am not sure whether the young hawk caught it, or if it was brought in by Pale Male. 

On June 30 around noon, Central Park's celebrity red-tailed hawk, Pale Male, flew over the 79th Street transverse with a pigeon and landed on a tree above Glade Arch. He called his two youngsters to have lunch. He kept calling as he plucked the pigeon and moved to another branch. After a quarter of an hour, he began to eat the pigeon, but kept calling softly to his fledglings. They never came, and Pale Male finished the meal.

I then left for the Yankees game, with some very striking video and photos.

Pale Male with pigeon, Glade Arch, June 30.

I did not add music to the video, and kept as much sound on as I could so you can hear the robins and blue jays screaming and hear the camera clicks. I removed the inane conversations I was hearing.

Red, White and Blue: Black-Crowned Night Herons

I've always been intrigued by the black-crowned night herons. At first I couldn't figure out where the black crown was — their heads have always looked blue to me. Maybe I just never see them with black crowns, or maybe whoever named them was missing a couple of color cones. Anyway, I think of them as the patriotic birds, with their blue and white feathers, and those red, red eyes.

The turtles photo bomb a black-crowned night heron at the Pond, June 28, 2016.

We've had several of these herons at the 59th Street Pond recently. At least one of them flies over to the spot where I'm feeding the ducks and waits for the fish to show up. I haven't seen a heron catch a fish using this method, but as my video shows, I have seen them catch very big fish, and gobble them right now. The Filming the Feathers film includes sightings on June 23, 24, 28, 30, July 1, 3 and 5, and is set to a wind octet by Beethoven.

It's really nice when the black-crowns come so close, since the head shots are delightful. I also love trying to spot them in the trees.

I understand these guys eat rats, too. I'm all for that! To see more heron photos, visit the black-crowned night heron page.

Little Duckies at the Pond

On July 5, Mama Mallard took her six little ducklings out for a swim on the Pond in Central Park. Mama was interested in the peanuts I brought for Woody, but I was careful that the little ones didn't get any — they could choke!

I wanted to post this ASAP because too often I return to the Pond and there are fewer little duckies than there were the day before. There are so many dangers! Snapping turtles, huge carp, raccoons, rats, black crowned night herons — all could try to make a snack of a little duckling. 

But last year or the year before, one of the Pond mallard mamas kept all seven of her little ducklings alive until they were the equivalent of teenagers. And this year a mallard mama at Turtle Pond also kept her seven ducklings alive. So I will keep my fingers crossed for all of these little ones.

So much cuteness in one little video! My thanks to the ever so talented Eric Benjamin Gordon for his composition Mild Life used in this film.