Having spotted this Red-tailed Hawk on the roof of my apartment building when I returned home last week, I hurried up the five flights to see what I could see.
The bird was mantling over its prey, spreading out wings and tail feathers.
Classic raptor behavior. We surmise from this that the bird is trying to conceal its prey from others.
Like, um… so it seems a good surmise. This other Red-tail was also a juvenile. I wonder if these were siblings? (Saw four adult Red-tails soaring together over Green-Wood recently; more recently this last weekend, saw three from my window along with a Common Raven, but in the excitement and the cloudy light, I didn’t get any ages.)
Access to our roof is via the stairway bulkhead. The wind was fierce. I didn’t want to go out, which would probably have scared off the hawk. So I held the door to keep it from being banged open by the wind with one hand and took pictures with the other.
Here’s the other hawk, the one without the pigeon lunch.
Nicitating membrane, the other eyelid of birds, visible here.
I retreated as quietly as I’d arrived. The neighbor right below this corner could hear the bird screeching. Sometime later, I noticed one of the hawks flying downhill, with a gull behind, the gull probably eager to pick at scraps, if there were any.
Raptor Wednesday on Thursday
Published November 21, 2019 Fieldnotes 1 CommentTags: birding, birds, Brooklyn, Sunset Park
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.