Red-tailed Hawk next door

Birdwatching on Saturday, 06 May 2006.

This photo offers a general view from my daughter's window when looking out to the northeast. I marked up some the photo to identify some of the landmarks. Linclon of the Pale Male web site will observe on the roof of the Parker Meridian Hotel. That roof appears about one floor higher than I am. In fact today he has some incredible shots of the hawks on the homepage. (The home page appears to change regularly.)

From the photos below, one can see that the angle of attack/observation is slightly higher in elevation than the nest. I can't see entirely inside but a little above it. I am uncertain whether this is Pale Male Jr. or Charlotte. On his web site, Linclon reports that only Pale Male Jr. has been sitting in the nest.

I did some bird watching, Peregrine Falcons, with Ben later in the day and I mentioned these hawks to him. He knows of them all too well, describing which was which based on the coloring of the head in terms of light & dark. Naturally I forgot since I didn't scribble a note.

These photos were taken with eyepiece projection using a Canon Digital Elph - PowerShot S200 rubberbanded to a Tele Vue Ranger with TV Plossl 8mm eyepiece. The image is not absolutely as bright as I would like it but it does show some decent detail. From a distance Ben estimated from the roof to the Trump Parc at some 400 feet, my distance is about 600+ feet. Neither photo was touched up except for cropping in IrfanView.

Photo 1: Red Tailed Hawk flying into the nest. Click on image for a larger view 2MB.


Photo 2: Red Tailed Hawk sitting in the nest. This is how she was most of the afternoon. I chose this image to display her profile.


A good site I found from Ben's blog is Bruce Yolton's blog. One can download a 65-page pdf file that covers these hawks exclusively. Some really tight photos where he was able to get from a nearby window. And how can one ignore New York City as the backdrop - simply wonderful & beautiful.