Bayridge, Brooklyn

Yesterday morning, while Shane and I were driving down 7th Avenue in Bayridge towards the Verrazano Bridge, I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk chasing some pigeons. It seemed like a rather odd location for a large hawk. We were stopped at the intersection of 73rd Street where the surrounding neighborhood is comprised of mostly lowrise apartment buildings. The hawk perched adjacent to a tiny park named McKinley Park that has few large trees. It was an immature red-tailed with unusually dark, practically black, facial feathers. It looked very similar to the beat-up hawk that Sean S. and I saw being chased from Prospect Park by the adults on February 27th.

During the course of the day we spotted about five Red-tailed Hawks between Bayridge, Staten Island and Jones Beach. I began to wonder about all the locations where they could possibly be nesting around the five Boroughs. I am aware of the three pairs in my corner of Brooklyn and the annual nest on 5th Avenue across from Central Park but where else are they breeding?