Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
The owlets’ father watches from his nearby roost.
Some of my favorite photographic subjects here at the Botanical Garden are its resident Great Horned Owls. Since 2009, I’ve had the pleasure of photographing and filming five of their nest sites. Sadly, 2014 was the last year that there were hatchlings here. That’s why this year’s brood was so special. But 2017 saw no ordinary owl nest. This is a tale of epic proportions!
Back in 2009, a pair of Red-tailed Hawks decided to build their nest inside the upper right pediment of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library Building. Rose and Hawkeye (the Red-tails that year, who are sadly no longer with us) had three hatchlings that year. It was a big deal for both staff and visitors. Each year since, I’ve always crossed my fingers in the hopes that one day the nest would be used again by our local Red-tails.
And it was used again alright. But by a completely new set of tenants!
Patricia Gonzalez is an NYBG Visitor Services Attendant and avid wildlife photographer.
Rose the Red-tailed Hawk
One of my favorite things about working at The New York Botanical Garden is all the opportunities to see wild Red-tailed Hawks in action. Since my first close-up encounter with a hawk by the white pines back in February of 2009, I’ve been documenting them, both with my camera and in my notebook.
I’ve had the pleasure of photographing and filming these winged hunters as they soar overhead, hide quietly in the trees, and swoop down on unsuspecting prey. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve encountered one of them as soon as I enter the Garden grounds, or at the end of my day right before I exit. During my early treks, I learned that the adults nested nearby at Fordham University. The Botanical Garden, Fordham Campus, and the Bronx Zoo are all parts of their overall hunting ground.
But for sheer variety, the Garden is the equivalent of a raptor smorgasbord. Squirrels, chipmunks, white-footed mice, short-tailed shrews, garter snakes, and cotton-tailed rabbits are but a few of the inhabitants that call the Garden their home. They provide the hawks with sustenance all year round.
It was a little after noon on February 26 of 2009 that I enjoyed one of the most amazing experiences of my life. By that time, I had already been shooting photographs at The New York Botanical Garden for a year, and it seemed like every creature living in the Garden had cooperated with my camera except for one species: the Red-tailed Hawks which often hunt throughout the NYBG. I had been able to get a few shots, but always from a distance and far overhead.
Other times, I couldn’t ready my camera fast enough and my subject matter would disappear into the sky.
Nestled in a corner of the North Bronx is an oasis of trees, plants, and flowers. For many in the borough, The New York Botanical Garden is an escape from the daily grind of living in New York City. Although it is known primarily as a museum of plants, the garden is also teaming with wildlife: Squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, muskrats, and other creatures make their home there, and so do many species of birds. Two of those birds, Rose and Vince, have become celebrities amongst the wildlife photographers and bird-watchers that regularly frequent the Garden’s 250 acres.
Vince
Rose and Vince are red-tailed hawks. Rose was a celebrity long before she built a nest at the Botanical Garden in 2009. She and Hawkeye, her first mate, had made their home on the Fordham University campus back in 2005 where they built a nest in an old oak tree and had two chicks. In 2006 they moved on to a ledge of one of the campus buildings (Collins Hall) where they had three more offspring. Success followed in 2007 and 2008 where they would have three chicks each year.
Walking by the NYBGLibrary Building yesterday, we spotted a huge Red-tailed Hawk as it swooped across the trees and sailed to the top of a giant oak. During the daytime, these hawks are the top avian predators in our area and very impressive to behold (at night, the Great-horned Owls reign supreme). A group of bird watchers on the path gazed upward with large binoculars and telescopes.
Maybe this bird is a distant cousin of Pale Male, the famous Red-tailed Hawk who settled in Manhattan in the 1990s, defying hazardous urban living conditions and continuing to produce young hawks to this day. Or it could be a cousin of last year’s celebrity Red-tailed Hawk, Violet, who enchanted the residents of Washington Square Park in Manhattan before succumbing to a heart condition. Or perhaps it is one of the Garden’s own celebrity hawks, Rose and Vince, or one of their many, many offspring.
Richard Fleisher is a professor of Political Science at Fordham University. He has been keeping watch at the red-tailed hawk nest at The New York Botanical Garden and chronicling the activity of the nestlings. Additional photos of the red-tailed hawks can be seen on his Web site.
For the past four years I have watched and photographed two red-tailed hawks nest, hatch, nurture, and successfully fledge 11 young red-tails at Fordham University. The pair were named “Hawkeye” after Fordham alum Alan Alda’s character in M*A*S*H and “Rose” for Rose Hill, the Bronx campus of the University. Hawkeye is lighter in color than Rose, who has a distinctive band on her right leg. I had grown accustomed to watching this pair each spring as they fortified the nest on Collins Hall in preparation of another breeding cycle. In April the eggs would hatch, and soon young hawks that looked like little cotton balls would be visible through my scope. Very quickly these hatchlings (usually three) would get bigger, and by June they would be seen fledging (leaving the nest).
This spring, however, was different—there were no signs of the adult pair engaging in this practice. For sure, in early winter I would see them perched atop some of their favorite high spots on the campus. But when February became March and there continued to be no activity, I figured something was up. Sure enough, I got word that a pair of red-tails was nesting on the Library building at the Botanical Garden. I gathered my equipment, including my scope, cameras, 500mm lens, and tripod, to investigate the report of this new nest.
Though I cannot be sure, I am fairly confident that the pair of red-tails in the Botanical Garden is the same pair that spent the past four years on the Fordham campus. The similarities between the two nests are quite striking—both were built on a pediment of a frequently used building. In addition, it strikes me as too much of a coincidence that the same year the Fordham nest was abandoned a new nest was built by red-tailed hawks at NYBG. Finally, I got a close-up photo of the female and can see that she has a band on her right leg. (For more on the debate about whether the pair is Hawkeye and Rose, click here.)
As was the case in previous years, the pair produced three increasingly active hatchlings, which are now visible in the nest.
To learn more about the Botanical Garden red-tailed hawk nestlings…
