Oh, Those Golden Slippers!

The yellow "slippers" on the snowy egrets set them apart from other herons like the great egret. I saw my first snowy egrets in July 2015 at Marine Park in Brooklyn, and spent much of the summer of 2017 watching these beautiful birds with great personalities at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, Wolfe's Pond and Lemon Creek Park on Staten Island, Marine Park, and Pelham Bay Park, near Orchard Beach, in the Bronx.

Snowy egret, Wolfe's Pond, Staten Island, September 1, 2017

Snowy egret, October 19, 2017, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

These beautiful birds were so much fun to film. I have posted two videos in the Filming the Feathers series, the first covering July 25, 2015, to September 21, 2017, and Part II from September 29 to October 21, 2017. You can watch them catch and eat fish, and run around, sometimes looking as if they haven't a clue where they're going!

I took loads of pictures of these photogenic herons. Here are some taken in 2017, and you can see more on the Snowy Egrets page.

Hawk Fights

It's winter, and time for visiting juvenile red-tailed hawks in Central Park. They're coming through, trying to establish themselves, and sometimes they fight with each other, or the resident adult hawks knock them off their branches and chase them out.

On Christmas Eve, we were following a first-year hawk as he hunted and flew around the Bethesda Fountain area. We called him Stretch because he could really stretch his neck up to look around. While stretching that neck perched on a branch of a tree just west of Bethesda Fountain, he was smacked by another, larger first-year hawk. Thus was the first Battle of Bethesda Fountain. After the fight, Stretch flew south and the winning hawk surveyed her realm from a tree on the east side of the fountain. The following photos were pulled from the video, which you can see below.

Stretch, before the fight, hunting near Bethesda Fountain, December 24, 2017

Victoria, the victorious hawk, December 24, 2017

The victorious young hawk we named Victoria, and we followed her that evening and for several days after. On Christmas Day, we followed Vicky around the Bandshell/Bethesda area. She was hunting, and her Christmas wish was granted in the afternoon: a squirrel dinner.

Victoria on Christmas Day, after an attempt to catch a squirrel

I put together another video, called Ho! Ho! Hawks!!!, which covers December 25, 27, 29 and 31. Most of the video shows little Victoria, and there is graphic footage of her eating a squirrel and a rat. I tried to cut it down a bit, but it is interesting to watch how she keeps looking around to protect her meal while eating on the ground (the squirrel was too heavy to fly to a tree). There is a brief look at Fred, the West Side adult red-tailed hawk that believes Bethesda Fountain is his territory, looking down before chasing the kid.

These photos show the kid on December 25.

These photos are from December 27 and 31.

After New Year's Day, we saw Victoria on January 5 and 7. On the 7th, she was first near Strawberry Fields, where Ginger, Fred's red-tailed mate, was perched in a pine tree staring at her. The youngster flew east, but then flew to Cherry Hill, where Ginger chased her out. After more attempts to return, the youngster went after Ginger, and would probably have kept fighting if Fred hadn't swooped in and chased her off. Two kids fighting? Victoria wins. Victoria tag-teamed by two adult hawks? The adults, no question! Fortunately, I was able to film part of the battle.

Ducky, It's Cold Outside!

It has been really cold in New York since Christmas, and I've been going down to the 59th Street Pond to feed Woody and his buddies as the ice takes up more of their habitat, plus checking out the ducks and other waterfowl at the Reservoir in Central Park, and at the beaches at Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn and Great Kills on Staten Island. These birds seem so resilient in the freezing cold (although I have seen casualties, often the result of a duck or cormorant trying to land on the ice and breaking a leg).

Woody Wood Duck, Jan. 9, 2018, the Pond

Northern pintail and mallards, the Pond, Jan. 9

I put together a video homage to the ducks, geese, gulls and other water birds I've seen during the cold weather. I call it Cold Ducks!!! and it's set to music by Debussy. It features hooded mergansers, ruddy ducks (including the only time I've seen one try to run on ice), a common loon, ring-billed gulls, buffleheads, greater scaup, herring gulls, Canada geese, wood ducks (Woody and his buddies at 59th Street, plus two at the Reservoir), long-tailed ducks (the first I've ever seen — a video of them to come soon!), ring-necked ducks (my second-favorite duck), mallards, northern pintail (Pinny), American coot, American black ducks, northern shovelers, great black-backed gulls, brant and red-breasted mergansers.

Below you can find a photo gallery of some of the cold ducks and other freezing birdies.

Hooded merganser on the Reservoir, Jan. 2

Northern pintail (Pinny) at the Pond, Jan. 9

Ring-necked duck on the Reservoir, Jan. 9

Ring-billed gull, Floyd Bennett Field, Jan. 10

The photos below were taken Dec. 27 and 28, 2017, and Jan. 2, 3, 9 and 10, 2018: Canada geese, long-tailed duck, hooded merganser (female), wood duck (Woody's nephew), wood duck (back, at Reservoir), male and female ring-necked ducks, black ducks, great black-backed gulls, northern pintail, herring gulls, American coot (you can really see those great "fern feet"), red-breasted merganser, more black-backed gulls.