New Jersey Parks Open

New Jersey parks opened yesterday with great weather. There are restrictions. Keep your distance, wear face coverings. Parking is limited to half of capacity. If the park is full, come back later or try another. The playgrounds and organized sports areas, picnic areas, visitor centers, and bathrooms are closed. Everyone I passed (from six feet away) was following those guidelines and just enjoying being outside and walking in a park again. 

As Katrina Mayer says: "Time spent among trees is never wasted time."

There's always something to see, like this tufted titmouse.

Or white-breasted nuthatch.

Or an immature red-tailed hawk doing an Exorcist-style 180 degree head turn.

Rachel Carson once said: "There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter." Rancocas Creek yesterday on the verge of a new season. 

Click to enlarge.

In the park with my quarantine curls and homemade mask. 

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed hawks are widespread and common across North America. They are often seen sitting on roadside poles and flying over woods and fields. They are tolerant of human noise and activity; I've seen them sitting on traffic lights in the heart of New York City while cars and pedestrians mill below. Click to enlarge the photos.

The hawk in this blog is a resident wildlife ambassador at Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford, New Jersey, photographed at one of their occasional raptor photography sessions. Click here for the website of the refuge.

You've probably heard red-tailed hawks calling overhead. The call is often used as a sound effect in movies and television shows as a kind of generic raptor call.  Click here to listen to recordings of red-tailed hawks from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Somehow I made it through the entire photo shoot without a picture of the hawk's eponymous tail. Face palm! Click here to see a previous blog with some rear views.

Red-tailed Hawk

I pulled over to the side of a New Jersey road and stopped at this red-tailed hawk to take a picture from the passenger side window. It turned to watch me.

It was sitting on a wire surveying an open field, which is the red-tail's style of hunting. He kept his eye on me as I snapped another couple of shots.

Note the red tail from which the bird gets its common name. Click to enlarge.

It turned to check me with the other eye. Not wanting to be too disturbing, I drove away and left it to its hunting.

Guardian Crows

The bird feeders at my place are really busy these days. I see lots of chickadees that are, so far, too fast for me to photograph. The tufted titmouse above and all his relatives are busy all day taking seeds from the feeders and stashing them in secret places for later. 

Downy woodpeckers are busy pecking at seeds and suet. 

Here's a female downy waiting and watching. 

I can depend on visits from a few dozens lovely red house finches every day. 

Cute little white-breasted nuthatches flit between feeders and trees, hanging upside down to take seeds and running acrobatically along tree trunks and branches. Click to enlarge. 

All the bird activity attracts hawks. This is an immature red-tailed hawk. 

Its tail isn't red yet, just striped. It sits and watches the little birds at the feeder, looking for an opportunity to catch something tasty. 

But crows are also watching. They keep an eye on the hawks. Yesterday I heard a racket outside and when I looked, half a dozen crows were dive-bombing a red-tailed hawk that was sitting in a tree. When crows harass a predator like this, it's called "mobbing" -- they cooperate to bother the hawk, usually to keep it from messing with their young. The little birds at my feeders benefit, too. Thanks, guardian crows! 

Parti-colored Starling

Only kidding. It's so cold and rainy outside that I spent most of it sitting in a comfortable chair playing games and some of it creating imaginary birds with Photoshop from my archive of bird images. Click to enlarge. 

Here's another. I call it a green-belted hawk. 

How about a pink-winged mockingbird? 

Or a blue-breasted robin. Had enough? Here's a bird poem instead. 

A Bird Came Down the Walk 

by Emily Dikinson

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw; 
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,- 
They looked like frightened beads, I thought; 
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

And this is what the birds above really look like: 

European Starling -- Sturnus vulgaris

Red-tailed hawk -- Buteo jamaicensis

Northern Mockingbird -- Mimus polyglottos

American Robin -- Turdus migratorius

Restless Hawk

I saw this immature red-tailed hawk last week in Central Park. 

It was inspecting tree holes. 

I think it was inspired by the spring weather to think about making a nest. 

It picked up sticks and carried them, put them down again. 

Click to enlarge. 

When I left the hawk it was standing with its foot on a newly collected stick --
almost ready to start building.

Neighborhood Hawk

This young red-tailed hawk visited Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn Heights on Saturday. 

It got this head forward alert look whenever a squirrel or dog came near. I've seen red-tailed hawks eating squirrels in New York trees before, but not this day. Note the brown striped tail, indicating that it is immature. The famous red tail develops in a red-tailed hawk's second year. Click the photos to enlarge. 

Here it is showing off an impressive Exorcist style head rotation. No sneaking up behind this bird! 

Gathering Nest Material

A house sparrow with a mouthful of dry grass. 

A red-tailed hawk with a stick. 

A squirrel carrying dry leaves. 

A lot of nest-building going on this week! 

A hawk for the holidays!

Buteo jamaicensis -- Click on the picture to enlarge. 

A young red-tailed hawk has moved into Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn Heights, close enough to my home that it is almost a backyard bird. One of my readers has been watching it for a few weeks and pointed it out to me. You can see where the hawk has been perching by clicking here. Thanks Eric! I hope the hawk stays.

Philadelphia Edition -- a Red-tailed Hawk in the City of Brotherly Love

I spent the weekend in Philadelphia. I visited the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's house and grave, Betsy Ross' house and grave, City Hall, Penn's Landing, Christ Church,  and Elferth's Alley (which is the oldest continuously inhabited street in America).

Elferth's Alley. 

I was snapping shots of the statue below called "The Signer" -- he holds a scroll in one hand and a quill pen in the other -- when I noticed that bird perched in the tree above and to the left of the statue. The bird was holding something with its foot and pulling it apart with its beak.

The Signer in Signers Park, Old City, Philadelphia.

A closer look revealed a red-tailed hawk. It never got any closer so we have to settle for a glimpse. If I had arrived sooner I might have seen it swoop down from its perch to strike and kill whatever it was eating. Red-tailed hawks usually capture small mammals or birds.

A red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis.

Red-tailed hawks are common throughout North America where they occupy forests, fields, grasslands, desserts, mountains and cities. They seem to be unfazed by civilization; I have seen one perched on a street light in a traffic island at a busy intersection in New York City at rush hour.

They are big birds that can weigh over three pounds, measure over two feet long, and open their wings to span more than four feet. The red-tailed hawk's plumage color can vary but adults all have the famous reddish tail. The light colored underbelly is crossed by a band of vertical streaks. The bill is short, dark, and hooked. The legs and feet are yellow.

The bird I saw was eating quietly; if I had not been looking up I would not have seen it. But red-tails have a famous cry that is often heard overhead (even over the noise of New York City) and it is very often used in the soundtracks of television shows and movies -- a harsh screaming cry of Keeee-eee-ar.

Here is a YouTube link to a screaming red-tailed hawk:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33DWqRyAAUw