Saturday Flyout

New owlers at West Drive fly-out
photo by Bruce Yolton


A big crowd gathered to witness the West Drive owl flyout on Saturday, 3/11/06. Among them Sam Cardwell, 7, a student at St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's on the Upper West Side, and his mother, Margaret. Sam is already an ardent follower of the Fifth Avenue Hawks and may be the youngest reader of Red-tails in Love.

In spite of the crowd that included several photographers [none using flashbulbs, fortunately] the fly-out went without a hitch at about 6:10 pm. The single cat-faced female flew in a northwesterly direction, looped a bit southward and then perched for almost ten minutes on a branch quite near to the owl bench. A few of us clearly heard four bursts of the beautiful downward trill song before she took off again towards the Upper Lobe.

Was she calling to the young, one of whom was seen at the hole entrance on Friday at 2pm?