Today I took the subway up to 102 to look for the screech owl. Someone told me "exactly" where to find her, so I figured, hey, why not take a look around. Even knowing where to look it's no easy to task to find an owl, and I did not do so well. But when I was taking a picture of a chickadee, someone asked me if I had seen her. I said I was looking for her, but no, I didn't even know what tree she was usually in. The directions I got seemed to apply to about a zillion trees. She was kind enough to show me her usual spot, which was empty! Oh well, no owl. I started walking down towards the reservoir.
As I walked I noticed a hawk fly in near the pool. And chase away another hawk which I had totally missed! They both flew off, and I caught up with this one. Yay!
And then I kept walking, and at about 97th this one was perched right above the park road. I mean, really, right above it.
Meanwhile this one flew circles all around, and the one perched just completely ignored it. This one eventually flew uptown.
At the reservoir this pair of double crested cormorants was swimming around in formation for quite some time. It was great to see them!
This pair of northern shovelers was in sync,
Down to the upper lobe, where yet another hawk was perched, right up at the tip of the upper lobe. Gorgeous!
At maintenance meadow I saw this red breasted nuthatch. Not a good shot (the light was horrible) but it's been so seldom that I've seen them, I took a zillion pictures anyway! :-)
At the oven, the turtles were displaying courtship behavior. Here is a male in front of a female trying to court her. And then another male came over trying to horn in the action, and the first male get upset, and there was a turtle fight. The female rolled, with a turtle-style eye roll.
This one isn't even getting involved, just looking pretty in the sun.
A pair of downies came over and was apparently having some sort of dispute. At least that's my guess. They chased each other around a lot. And at a couple of points there was just a falling whirlwind of downies that broke apart just before reaching the ground.
They eventually left together, still chasing each other around. I guess they didn't resolve whatever. It looked like they were both female to me, or at least I didn't see any red, and I was looking for it! I saw them mate here once last year, so I was hoping for a repeat performance. Not this time!
This time the male is courting the female and not getting interrupted. I have no idea if it's the same turtles.
By the stream near stone benchlet I saw this eastern phoebe! I'm pretty sure. Everyone is reporting them excitedly, so, it's likely.
Time to head home. Walking down the park road I saw yet another hawk (it was sort of ridiculous) and found it perched by Strawberry Fields. What a great ending to this long but owl-free walk!
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