Sunday, March 31, 2013

Red-tailed hawks near Rufus King Park

From DNA Info:

Seven years ago, when Thomas Crater looked through the bedroom window of his sixth-floor apartment in Jamaica, he saw a big bird sitting on his fire escape.

“At first I thought it was an owl,” he said.

The unusually large bird, which turned out to be a red-tailed hawk, was sitting and watching the surrounding buildings and streets from the rail on the top floor. The raptor must have liked the location and has continued coming back, keeping Crater company.

Last fall, the bird, now even bigger, found a mate and the pair hangs out on his fire escape on 164th Street, near 89th Avenue, about seven blocks from the popular Rufus King Park, where the hawks have also been spotted.

It’s a love-hate relationship, jokes Crater, who said he both admires and fears the birds. He watches them with a wary respect as they sit on his fire escape for up to an hour, searching for prey below.

4 comments:

Alan said...

Reminds me of an encounter I had during the summer of 2011. The hawk in the video probably calls the old Flushing Airport site its home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwW6WuSNCVI

Anonymous said...

At least their food is not the poor NYC sheeple that Bloomie likes to prey on.

Anonymous said...

It is said that 50% of their diets are rats and mice. Additional answers about the hawks were published in the NY Times a while ago:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/answers-about-red-tailed-hawks-part-i/

Anonymous said...

"It is said that 50% of their diets are rats and mice."

Interesting. I learned something today. The city council and mayor are hawk food!!!