Category: Red-tailed Hawk
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Herons in Trees: Watching and Waiting at High Tide
Many of my favorite heron sightings these past few weeks have occurred at high tide. While it’s more common to spot herons wading through the waters during times of low tide, abundant fish during the late summer keep the herons nearby. They watch and wait, frequently grooming their feathers. Look for them in trees or…
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Blizzard Warning: A Great Blue Heron Hunkers Down, and Other Stories of the Birds of Inwood in a Cold and Snowy Month
Northern Cardinals have resumed singing their song of spring this past week, so you would never know that NYC and parts of the Tri-State area are currently under a blizzard warning. As I write, the temperatures are mild, and the sky is blue. The blizzard warning is the first such weather alert issued for NYC…
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The Snows of January and the Birds of Inwood
A quarrel of sparrows has descended on my fire escape each morning this January, asking for some seeds. A year or so ago, I tossed a handful of seeds out my kitchen window. They never forgot. Recently, as the snows and cold weather have descended on the city and on much of the rest of…
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The Birds for Our New York City Moment
Over the course of several busy and consequential days for New York City— a thrilling Halloween Parade, a photo finish for the NYC Marathon, and the city’s historic mayoral election— thousands of birds flew overhead. Some were late migrants en route to winter homes and springtime in the Southern Hemisphere. Other birds came here to…
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Fall Birding Falls Into Place: Notable Birds of Inwood During Mid-October
The last two weeks brought some volatile weather, including a big Nor’easter and high wind events, to the Salt Marsh and to the forest of Inwood Hill Park. The pace of fall migration sped up and then died down. Sometimes, on an average morning, there were many birds, and on other days, nothing much to…
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The Hawk and the Kingfisher
By the time the juvenile Red-tailed Hawk landed on a perch near the Salt Marsh on October 4, it was sopping wet. It was practicing its hunting skills by buzzing over the ducks in the water and then chasing a Belted Kingfisher foraging there. The hawk and the fast kingfisher flew circles around one another…
Birds of Inwood 