The warm weather had brought out the bats.  This bat was over Turtle Pond at dusk.

On Sunday around 5:30 p.m. I ran into Bob Levy, who said there were reports of a large bird west of the Lake.  We went to see what was there and within minutes saw a Wild Turkey.  After about 40 minutes, it flew up into a tree and roosted for the night.  What a nice ending to a day of very mixed weather.

One goes through periods where one doesn't see anything special while birding, and then all at once you turn a corner and see lots of interesting birds.  This happened to me on Thursday evening around 6 p.m.  I photographed four birds, including a new bird for my Central Park list, a Merlin on a ten minute walk from the East 70's to the West 70's.

Merlin

Wood Duck

Winter Wren

Brown Thrasher

The Fifth Avenue hawks are now sitting on their nest.

Lola's head is just visible as she sits on the nest.

Pale Male


Pale Male on the "Linda 6" window.

Daffodils are blooming and other signs of Spring are all around the park.  The diversity of birds being reported has increased greatly in the last ten days.

The 5th Avenue hawk watchers found this Brown-headed Cowbird behind their bench at the model boat pond on Saturday.

The nest has eggs.  How many? Still a mystery.

The afternoon sun hits the nest around 1:35 p.m.

A relaxed mother to be.

A close up of the nest.

Junior arrives to give Charlotte a break.

A few minutes interaction and she's off. There are a two extra feet in the picture, so I guess lunch was involved.

Junior

He quickly settles down on to the nest.

The wonderful view.

On Monday night, after watching an Owl fly out, I made my way down to Central Park South, to see if I could take pictures of Charlotte on her nest.  Here are the grainy results...

The nest is so high, she's barely visible once she settles in.

Reports are that Charlotte laid an egg on Sunday and is now sitting on the Central Park South nest.  This is about a week later than Lola who is already sitting on her Fifth Avenue nest.

If all goes well this year, it should be a wonderful Spring with lots of fledglings in the park.

Saturday was a wonderful day.  The temperture was in the sixties and it was clear that Spring would soon be arriving.

Junior flying near the nest around 7:30 am.

Charlotte with Junior behind, with only his tail is visible, on top of the Essex House sign in the early afternoon.

Junior on his first visit to the nest while I was photographing in the afternoon.

The nest looks great with about double the volume of last year's nest.

Junior returns, leaves briefly and returns with some paper.

The paper gets wedged into the nest.

Later he returns later.  I couldn't tell if he has brought an addition to the nest.

He looks great.

Charlotte, left and Junior, right on a ledge of the Hampshire House where they spend 45 minutes.

Later he returns with another piece of paper, one he caught in mid-air!  He not only helps control pigeons and mice, he collects trash and recycles.

Junior then flies west, and after a few minutes out of sight.

The nest is a little bigger after some Saturday additions by Junior.

This young Cooper's Hawk makes afternoon tea out of a pigeon in the Tupelo Meadow.

Rob Jett reports on his excellent The City Birder blog, that the Fordham Campus Red-tailed Hawks have made the move from tree nesting to building nesting.

This makes the fourth New York City building nest I've heard reports of:

Fifth Avenue
Bronx Fire Escape (2004) (Daily News, NYC DEP)
Central Park South
Fordham Campus

Update: I forgot about the St. John the Divine (200?-?) nest, which would make five.  If you know of other building nests in NYC, please leave a comment.