EVG correspondent Steven shares this photo from yesterday... when red-tailed hawk parent Dora (on the lower right) was fighting with what the hawk watchers in Tompkins Square Park thought was a juvenile red-tailed hawk.
It was not immediately clear what the fight was over.
11 comments:
Can't we all just get along?
Jeeze guys, there's enough rat for everyone.
From what I hear, the juvenile tried to cut Dora in the line for the Cookie Walk, and Dora was having none of it.
It was a (beheaded) pigeon. They dropped it in my backyard on E 11th, no joke! I thought the smaller hawk was a female and the bigger one was a male.
It was over a lady hawk. Either that or money.
@Burnsy: Female red-tail hawks are almost always visibly larger than the males.
This may have been a territory dispute, with an interloper (young) hawk intruding into the TSP hawks' turf.
Usually they fight over territory or, as in this case, apparently, food.
This was a territory dispute. The resident red-tails kick out the migrating juvenile red-tails. Dora (the bigger of the two) is the one I most often see engaged in battle, but both hawks will often 'escort' an interloper out of the area. This time, things got pretty aggressive and she kicked the invader several times.
So I guess they end up kicking their kids out of the area every year? Or do the kids know enough to take off on their own?
What a photo!
@10:24 - the babies instinctively disperse. If they do hang around too long, the parents will give them the boot. I'd say it's a sign of good parenting if C&D's offspring are able to be self-sufficient as soon as possible.
In other hawk news, it looks like Washington Square will have a live cam on their hawk nest this spring. I don't know all the details yet, but Cornell is involved, so it should be a real treat.
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