I SAW I SAW I SAW IT!!!! On thursday i passed by and saw it by the huge cannon that is there. It was just sighting there and did not fly away. I should of taken a picture!!!! damn it damn it!!!

Quote:

Are they the reason there are fewer feral cats around here?
ewwww.

Gina

Wow, I guess that fledgling hawk I saw a couple of winters ago wasn't so rare after all

You know these birds are almost as big as an eagle full grown, and I suspect they'll eat anything smaller than them - mice, rats, cats & even small dogs on their own.

If you have a outdoor cat or even small dog, I'd be careful

I'm so glad that the hawk is going to be fine!

Gina

OOPS, IT'S A HAWK
Bird likely injured trying to fly, but that's no falcon

Saturday, June 16, 2007
By BERNETTE PEARSON
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The large brown-and-white bird found by a dog-walker in Jersey City is a young red-tailed hawk, not a falcon, a veterinarian said, and it may have been injured falling out of a tree while practicing to fly.

Dr. Laura Acosta, a veterinarian at Jersey City Animal Hospital, said it would be easy to mistake the hawk for a falcon.

"They (Jersey City Animal Control) thought it was a falcon because of its size," she said. "It takes time and a lot of working with birds to recognize the differences."

She said hawks are larger than falcons, but this one still has some growing to do.

The bird of prey was spotted on the ground by a man walking his dog in Bayside Park on Thursday afternoon. It hopped away but apparently could not fly.

It's not unusual for a young bird to fall out of a tree when it's in the "branching" stage, Acosta said.

"They go branch to branch to develop their wings," Acosta said.

The bird's sex couldn't be determined because its height and weight couldn't be accurately measured due to its injuries, Acosta said - the gender is generally determined by the bird's size because the sexual organs appear similar.

And, though some were surprised by the bird's presence, others say they have spotted this hawk - or, more likely, older ones - at Bayside Park for at least two years.

"I thought it was an eagle myself," said Kenny Dobson, a Jersey City school district custodian. When he saw the bird in yesterday's issue of The Jersey Journal, he realized he'd seen it before.

"I said, 'This is the bird that I've been seeing go back and forth,'" he said.

Apparently, the hawk is usually spotted around dusk, sometimes during baseball games, Little League coach Omar Smart said.

Jersey City resident Derrome Pressley also has spotted hawks or similar looking birds in the evenings as well.

"We sit there and actually watch as they catch and eat mice and stuff," he said.

There's also a large nest on top of one of the field's skylights that corresponds with the type of nest typically built by hawks, an expert said.

"Red-tails build a nest that is about 2 feet across," said Brian Moscatello, a manager at the New Jersey Audubon Society-sponsored Cape May Bird Observatory Center for Research and Education.

As recently as 20 years ago, it would have been quite rare to spot a red-tailed hawk in an urban area, Moscatello said. Now they're known to frequent high-rises and even tall trees in cities.

"I've seen red-tails in Bergen County, Liberty State Park and Palisade Park," he said.

As for the Bayside Park hawk, it's done fine, Acosta said. In fact, its appetite has returned - it ate a mouse yesterday, she said.

The bird was sent yesterday to Raptor's Trust, a bird rehabilitation facility in Millington. It will eventually be released back into the park