I can’t resist writing about the Riverside red-tails:
Reason No. 137 that I love commuting by bike in New York City: I get to watch baby hawks go to flight school.
Last year, I was fascinated and then heartbroken by a pair of red-tail hawks that built a precarious-looking nest over the West Side Highway, produced a trio of hatchlings, then lost their offspring before they got a chance to take flight, apparently to rat poison.
So I was happy—but concerned—this year when the hawks returned to Riverside Park and took up in a new tree, this time just off the West Side bike path that I frequently ride to work. (New York real estate experts would no doubt call this new nest an upgrade—it has great views of the Hudson River.)
I didn’t watch the pair as closely as I did last year, because I had a newborn of my own that took up most of my attention this spring. But I did check the updates occasionally at blogs that obsessively follow urban hawks, and I always looked up at the nest when I passed by their tree.
Riding home last week, I noticed more commotion than usual. Photographers—call them hawkarazzi—were pointing their lenses skyward, and parks employees were surrounding the hawks’ tree with a temporary fence and signs warning dog walkers to keep their pooches at bay.
The baby hawks were learning to fly.
Tags: nature, newyork, redtailhawks, riversidepark
