Fun on the Ground at Tompkins Square Park

The three red-tailed hawk fledglings at Tompkins Square Park have provided many hours of joy as they play on the ground and have family dinner with Dora and Christo, their parents. I spent June 15, 18, 19 and 23 at the park and took lots of video and photos.

Laura Goggin has a terrific blog about the Tompkins Square hawks. She takes some incredible photos.

Tompkins Square Fledgling, June 23, 2016

There are two videos, both set to Mozart, to enjoy.

Here are some photos from the trips downtown. I like the first two — you can see Dora in the first, and her kid in the second. Note the family resemblance! I've posted more photos on the Red-Tailed Hawks: Tompkins Square Park page.

A Green Heron at Azalea Pond

Azalea Pond in Central Park had a delightful visitor on June 17 and 18 — a green heron. I took a lot of photos and video, because this bird visits so infrequently, but yet is such a gorgeous animal.

The heron stood on this little branch over the water both days, regularly dipping into the water, pulling out a little fish, then gobbling it down. He kept doing this, as if he were at the movies chomping from a bag of popcorn.

We looked for the green heron the following days, but he wasn't to be seen. Maybe he went looking for a new pond, having finished off all the fish. Hope he comes back.

I edited the video I took the two days into two parts, so you can see how the heron behaves. I set both videos to music by Franz Joseph Haydn.

The following are some of the photos I took both days. You can find more on the Green Herons page.

Thursday in the Park With Pale Male's Kids

Thursday, June 16, was a great day to spend with Pale Male's two young babies. They were on the ground quite a lot, and posed for a lot of photos and video. I found this youngster on the lamppost over the 72nd Street drive in Central Park in the early afternoon.

One of the babies has been nicknamed Skinny Dipper, because the young bird took a dive in the Conservatory Pond the previous Sunday and was fished out with a net by the police and taken to the Wild Bird Fund, where Skinny was blown dry with a hair dryer. The little swimmer was released by Ranger Rob on Monday, very robust and ready to get back to the hard work of learning to hunt. Apparently a day at the beauty parlor is good for both hawks and people!

The other baby I nicknamed Topper, because the kid likes to sit on top of the cedar of Lebanon near Fifth Avenue. But others called the bird Speedo, because while Skinny Dipper's belly band is higher and more diffuse, Speedo's is lower and looks more like a Speedo suit. So we'll go with Speedo. This bird I saw on the 16th going after squirrels.

I did a very long video of the two kids, set to music by Rossini and Mozart. Skip around if you get bored, but I especially like the two "chest-bumping" around minute 11.

Here are some of the still shots from a wonderful day of chasing hawks in Central Park.