8/5/13 Pale Male and Happy 50th Birthday Didie

Today is my little sister’s 50th Birthday – so Happy Birthday Didie! May you have a wonderful day with your family. Rest assured that there is no truth in the rumour that bits start to fall off after 50 – they just sag a bit so always lie down and look up when you face-time someone!!!! 

Today we were to be on a tour through the Rambles (a more rugged part of Central Park) but it was cancelled due to bad weather. Instead we stayed for a while in the Belvedere Castle, a folly in the park. Peter found a book (no surprises there) and took photos of the park through the ages while I read about Pale Male.

According to Wikipedia, Pale Male (hatched 1990) is a well-known New York City Red-tailed Hawk who has made his home since the early 1990s near Central Park. Birdwatcher and author Marie Winn gave him his name because of the unusually light colouring of his head. He is one of the first Red-tailed Hawks known to have nested on a building rather than in a tree and is famous for establishing a dynasty of urban-dwelling Red-tailed Hawks. Each spring birders set up telescopes at the Model Boat Pond to observe his nest and chicks at 927 Fifth Avenue.

When he arrived in Central Park in 1991, as a first-year immature hawk, Pale Male tried to nest in a tree, but he was driven off by crows. He later roosted on a building on Fifth Avenue across the street from the park. In early 1992, he found a mate, dubbed First Love. First Love was injured later that year and removed to the Raptor Trust in New Jersey.

During her absence, Pale Male took another mate, called Chocolate by birdwatchers. After several unsuccessful spring nesting attempts, Pale Male and a mate, possibly Chocolate, hatched 3 eyasses (who knew that was the name for a baby hawk – not me) in 1995. The eyasses survived to young adulthood and took up residence in Central Park. Chocolate died later that year from injuries from a collision with a car on the New Jersey turnpike.

First Love returned to Central Park after being banded and released from the Raptor Trust. She and Pale Male reunited and raised several eyasses. People in the park waited months to see the eyasses grow and then take their first flights. Pale Male was a good father, bringing food to his offspring about five times each day. In 1997, First Love died after eating a poisoned pigeon in Central Park. 

Pale Male's mate from 1998 to 2001 was a hawk known as Blue. The pair was observed to hatch about 11 eyasses in that period. Blue disappeared about the time of the September 11 terrorist attack in 2001. In early 2002, Pale Male was first observed with a new mate, Lola. They raised 7 eyasses between 2002 and 2004, building a nest on ornamental stonework above a top-story window on a residential housing cooperative at 927 Fifth Avenue (at East 74th Street) on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Lola disappeared in December 2010 and is presumed dead.

A new mate appeared in early January 2011. This new hawk, Lima, was only in her second year. She was a young adult, with still-yellow irises, indicating her exact age. Her first nesting attempt was in the winter and spring of 2011 using the existing nest. Ginger exhibited behaviour consistent with incubation of eggs in mid-April 2011 and two eyasses emerged towards the end of May 2011, producing the first baby hawks in this nest since 2004. Lima died on Saturday, February 25, 2012, presumably from a poisoned rat.

After Lima's death, Pale Male took a new mate, dubbed Zena, with whom he subsequently mated. The two sired 3 offspring, 2 of which were poisoned, rescued, rehabilitated, and then released back into Central Park. In the meantime, Zena disappeared and is presumed dead, and Pale Male took a new mate, dubbed Octavia due to her status as Pale Male's eighth mate. To this date none of their eggs have hatched.

What is fun about this great story, is the response of New Yorkers and ‘bird people’ to their business. In December 2004, the hawks' nest and the anti-pigeon spikes that had long anchored it were removed by the board of the co-op. The removal caused an international outcry and a series of impassioned protests organized by New York City Audubon Society and the Central Park birding community.

Mary Tyler Moore, a resident of the building, also participated in the protests. On December 14, 2004, the building, city agencies, and the Audubon Society came to an agreement to replace the spikes and to install a new "cradle" for the nest. On the same day, Lincoln Karim, one of the protesters, was arrested for harassing the family of Richard Cohen, including his wife, CNN news anchor Paula Zahn. These charges were subsequently dismissed. By December 28, 2004, the scaffolding had been removed and the hawks started bringing twigs to the nest site.



This is a rarely captured mating ritual



However, eggs laid by Lola in March 2005 did not hatch, and in fact Pale Male and Lola did not hatch any new eyasses since the disturbance of their nest. A panel assembled by the Audubon Society reviewed the photos taken of the nest on January 4, 2008, and recommended the removal of the spikes protruding through the bowl of the nest. The spikes impede the rolling of the eggs during incubation. The Audubon Society obtained the approvals of municipal agencies and owners to have the 92 spikes removed from the nest.



We still haven’t seen him but it is on our wish-list…..