Looking for lunch

Sharp-shinned hawk, seen at the Evodia Field and the Azalea Pond
Photo by MURRAY HEAD day before yesterday [2/11/10]=

PS from Marie
In the photo this hawk looks big. But photos can be deceiving. In reality the sharpie is a pretty small hawk, approximately 11 inches in length. The Cooper's Hawk is 16.5, while the Red-tailed Hawk is 19 inches long [figures from Sibley]. To put it into perspective, the American Robin is 10" long!

The indomitable coyote, captured only by the artist

painting by Lee Stinchcomb


The Central Park coyote is still at large.

By the way, Lee [together with Noreen, Jimmy and Nick] is one of the central characters of Central Park in the Dark. [Picador Books,2009] She also created the illustrations at each of the book's chapter openings.

Male and female created he them

Male
photo by Rebekah Creshkoff -- 2/10/10 --North Woods


Female
photo by Murray Head-- 2/10/10 --mid-park

The countdown

35 days to PHOEBE DAY

Eastern Phoebe -- photo by David Speiser http://www.lilibirds.com

Fox Sparrows

Fox Sparrow in the snow --Central Park - 1/2o/09
photo by David Speiser www.lilibirds.com

In a report on eBirds last Saturday [2/6/10] birder Ben Cacase reported:
Two *Fox Sparrows* were feeding on handouts on Willow Rock near the Oven.

Between January and April, Fox Sparrows begin showing up sporadically in Central Park. These large birds with bright rufous breast streaks that converge into a big central blotch, are prize finds for the park's hardy winter birdwatchers. They [the birds, not, generally, the birdwatchers} are almost always found foraging on the ground, scratching with their feet among last year's dead leaves. And on warm sunny days in late winter they may be heard singing, "the richest and most melodious of all sparrow songs," says David Allen Sibley.in his field guide.

The Coyote: Not much to report says Regina

Any news about the coyote? I asked the park's Woodlands Manager, Regina Alvarez, this morning via eMail. She answered:

Hi Marie -

I actually don't have much to report other than there is a coyote in the park, lots of people have seen it all over the park. Bruce Yolton got some nice photos of it when it was on the ice at the Pool last week on his website http://urbanhawks.blogs.com/urban_hawks/2010/02/central-park-coyote.html

Department of Health and the Rangers are aware of it and are working to capture it.

Otherwise it has been thankfully uneventful. Raccoons are the major issue at the moment.

Regina

PS from Marie According to a story today in the Huffington Post [a news blog -- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/coyotes-at-columbia-unive_n_453724.html] -- three coyotes were seen and positively identified on the Columbia University campus yesterday morning [2/7/10] in front of Lewisohn Hall. When I eMailed Jack Meyer to see if he had any news about the Central Park coyote, he answered that bitter weather has been keeping him indoors in recent days, so he had no news.. But he sent me a clip about the Columbia coyote sighting and quipped::

" Maybe ours decided he needed an education to live in the big city, and went up to Columbia."

How did the coyote get to Central Park? and a small PS

Here's one way

Thanks to Bruce Yolton who sent along this photo -- source unknown.

The small PS: A reader of this website, Mai Stewart, has written to remind me that when I posted the essay by John Blakeman about the Central Park coyote it was she who wrote him to ask him to comment about it. The omission was inadvertent, and I hereby correct it.