In an e-mail, the photographer Murray Head wondered if the photo of a Riverside Park Red-tailed hawk I chose to post yesterday [a Murray Head photo from my files] adequately revealed the nest's "magnificence". He sent in the photo above [again, a Murray Head portrait] as a better illustration.

Remember the Riverside Hawks? and a PS

Building the Riverside nest last spring
Photo by MURRAY HEAD



A correspondent whose apartment looks out over Riverside Park, writes:

Dear Marie,

The Riverside Park Red-tailed Hawks have returned to one of their favorite viewing spots. Each bird is sitting on one tower of the Normandie [a landmark apartment house on Riverside Drive and 86th St.] surveying the territory and catching the morning sun. This couple is an inspiring sight and a reminder of what is truly important in this season of campaigning and economic woe.

Eleanor Macdonald

PS VOLUNTEER now and VOTE on TUESDAY. That's truly important too.

PPS Happy Halloween.

Favorite [X-rated] headline of recent weeks

Pale Male & Lola -- December 10, 2006
photo courtesy of PaleMale.com


The headline was not in the N.Y. Times or the Wall Street Journal, but on Bruce Yolton's Urban Hawks blog http://www.urbanhawks.blogs.com and it read:

Pale Male and Lola Sleep Together.

PS You can check it out on Bruce's blog. The headline referred to October 26, 2008.

Recent portraits of Central Park birds by David Speiser and a PS

Ruby-crowned Kinglet-- 10/27/08



Northern Mockingbird - 10/27/08


Song Sparrow - 10/24/08


Savannah Sparrow - 10/24/08

Eastern Phoebe, October 24, 2008 [But where is its tail???]




Red-tailed hawk -- two photos - 10/27/08

All photos by DAVID SPEISER
http://www.lilibirds.com

PS Though the weather is getting wintery, and the fall bird migration is winding down, there is still one vestige of summer evident in Central Park: on a walk last night from the Harlem Meer through the woods of the Ravine [where the screech owls nested last spring] and back again to the Meer, the loud sounds of cricket song could still be heard. At least three species of crickets were singing in the Wildflower Meadow just across from the Loch. They will continue to sing until the first frost. Then silence.