Hello y'all! My name's Greg and Live in the Heights, that is, Upper Manhattan. To be technical, Inwood is the northernmost part of Manhattan Island...or to be technical again, Marble Hill is actually the northernmost part. Which sounds strange as that appears as part of the mainland, i.e., part of the Bronx, on any modern map. The 1895 construction of the Harlem Ship Canal made it a separate island; in 1914 the river around it was filled in at the northern sides joining it to the mainland. Marble Hill insists on being Manhattan. Once a Bronx politician decided he wanted it, and being a follower of Hitler, insisted it was his Sudetenland. Obviously this was before the war. Neither he, nor the German madman, ever got their way. 

But enough pedantic history and geography. Let's have fun. I am writing this to have fun, as I really like living here. Since I took Spanish in high school, this is a wonderful chance to mejorar mi espanol. I walk around and shop in bodegas and eat at Mofongo at the corner of Dyckman and Broadway.

Last week at that corner, I was out with some petitions I printed up for amnesty for aliens who are basically law abiding and working people but who need to get their papers in order, and I saw everyone looking up suddenly. It was an immigrant. This one had no papers. He was circling around for a meal, most likely a rat, which are not scarce. Or a pigeon. That I deduced when someone said "esta cazando palomas". It's after hunting pigeons, that phrase translates to. And indeed they do, walk around Fort Tryon Park and you will find pigeon carcasses frequently. Hawks, the occasional falcon, and also some owls prey upon these birds.

This hawk watching is not a rare event up here. While much is said of Pale Male in Central Park, there are actually more Red-tailed Hawks up here, and they have been here before Pale Male started squatting rent free at 74th & 5th. Lots of fun to be had here. And that's just a start. A friend of mine goes in the late afternoon to the park and lies down just to watch bats. Then there are badgers, the occasional coyote, and everybody's fav - those sleek black-and-white furry creatures that make great pets - the skunks. OK not everybody's fav houseguest, and of course they need to be taken to the vet first to get rid of that smell thing. Else you have a very bad social life. They say that tomato sauce gets rid of the smell.
So lots of wildlife to be had in the city. And views of the Hudson. And oh, not for nothing is this called the Heights, this part of the apple has the highest point in Manhattan, which is 265 ft (81m) above sea level. Located in Bennett Park, near Pinehurst Avenue and 183rd St.

But getting back to the petition I circulated - it is a simple repeat of a proven formula that did a lot of good in the 1980s, and a lot of the Hispanic community benefited from it. I'd hate to read about some grandmother deported back to a country she's not seen for years, as did happen in the UK lately, a real tragedy for a Singaporean woman who had lived legally there for decades with her husband, kids and grandkids. Of course we have to get rid of the troublemakers, and everyone is hip to that. It's one thing for a raptor to prey upon other species, since in the balance of nature this gives a quick death that is much better than an illness in the wild; but humans ought not to kill and pimp each other. In nature, hawks do not enslave each other or torture or rape each other. They are noble creatures.

And as such command our respect, especially this Red-tailed Hawk, which ranges from Canada to Latin America. It's Latin name is Buteo jamaicensis, the latter as it was first recorded in Jamaica. It is common there and into Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. 

And it is getting common here too, what with about 13 nesting sites recorded in 2016 for Manhattan. The breeding success rate is high, with 26 hatches at 12 of these sites, 24 eyasses fledging. What with the abundance of food - yes there is a free lunch - and it is always fresh, consisting of pigeons, rats, mice, squirrels and whatever else happens to catch their eye - they do well.

Up in the Heights the nests are known to be at Inwood Hill Park,  J. Hood Wright Park,  Highbridge Park-Swindler Cove, and the Fairview Avenue side of Gorman Park. 

Inwood Hill Park: Possibly the oldest in Manhattan. But for 2013, the eyrie has been in one of two trees in the ravine just south of the playing field and close to Shorrakapoch Rock. (The one year elsewhere was probably due to great horned owls breeding in the ravine at the time.) Inwood used to be the first nest to hatch every year; first egg is believed to have been laid here about March 11.

Highbridge Park-Swindler Cove: There has been an eyrie in one of the trees near the
 north end of Highbridge Park for over a decade, although not always the same tree due to  storms damaging  some of the nesting trees, but at least in the same area.  From 2013-2015 it was directly above the park path just south of the intersection of Harlem River Drive, Tenth Ave., and Dyckman St., and directly across HRD from Swindler Cove Park and PS5. 

J. Hood Wright Park: Entering its sixth season, this fire escape nest site overlooks J. Hood Wright Park on Fort Washington Ave. For safety reasons, the nest has been removed each year after
 the   fledging, but the adults keep returning. The first two years, the Wright Park hawks were late nesters. In 2014 they moved their schedule up and were one of the earliest; in 2016  the first egg had been laid by March 10.

Fort George — Fairview Ave.-Gorman Park: In 2014 and 2015, there was an eyrie on a fire escape just above Fairview Avenue and  north of Gorman Park at 190th Street;  both years three eyasses were raised here. The eyrie was removed sometime after the 2015 season, and the
hawks have not rebuilt there for 2016. However, a hawk was observed perched directly above the site in late March, so they could be breeding at a new location close by, or the hawks moved downstairs, building a new nest  two floors lower. The pair seem to be early nesters, as in 2015 they were apparently the second pair in Manhattan to have a hatch. The northwest part of the Gorman hawks' range includes Fort Tryon Park. 

Despite this smorgasboard of Red-tails living uptown, the average New Yorker thinks mostly of Pale Male in Central Park. This is due to the central location of this famous Gothamite, and the furious media interest, including journalist Marie Winn's well known book Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, and the drawings and paintings of Ken Gibson, who by the way now lives in the Heights where he is completing his own book, The Birds of Prey of the City of New York. He has some of this art up at www.lureofthefalcon.blogspot.com 

When people ask how  Pale Male got his moniker, the answer is actually a bit technical. The Red-tailed Hawk, as with most Buteos, tends to have more variation than most other species. So much so that splitters and lumpers argue over the subspecies, making war over binomials and trinomials; indeed, some subspecies Red-tails were considered separate species in the past. The wide range of B. jamaicensis, from Canada to Panama, makes for this phenomenon. Thus Pale Male has less spotting on his chest than other subspecies; a list of which is appended below. The hawks in the Heights tend to be more heavily barred and darker than the Central Park resident, but not nearly as dark as the Harlan's (B. jamaicensis harlani). 
There are at least 13 recognized subspecies of Buteo jamaicensis, which vary in range and in plumage:
  
B. j. jamaicensis, the nominate subspecies, found in Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles. El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rio holds the highest known density of Red-tailed Hawks anywhere.
  B. j. alascensis, found from southeastern coastalAlaska to the Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
  

B. j.calurus found from central Alaska, through western Canada south to Baja California. It winters from southwestern British Columbia southwest to Guatemala and northern Nicaragua.
 
B. j. costaricensis,  found from Nicaragua to Panama.
  B.j.fuertesii, found from northern Chihuahua to southern Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and
southern Louisiana.
  

B. j.  fumosus, found on Islas Marías, Mexico.

 
B. j. hadropus, found in the Mexican Highlands
   B. j. harlani, Harlan's Hawk, is markedly different fromall other Red-tails. In both color morphs, the plumage is blackish and white, lacking warm tones (save the tail). The tail may be reddish, dusky,

 whitish, or gray and can be longitudinally streaked, mottled, or barred. Shorter primaries result in wingtips that don't reach the tail in perched birds. It breeds in Alaska and northwestern Canada and winters from Nebraska and Kansas to Texas and northern Louisiana. This population may well be a separate species.
 
B. j. kemsiesi, found from Chiapas to Nicaragua.
 
B. j. kriderii is paler than other Red-tails, especially on the head; the tail may be pinkish or white. In the breeding season, it occurs from southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba,
and extreme western Ontario south to south-central Montana, Wyoming, western Nebraska, and western Minnesota. In winter, it occurs from South Dakota and southern Minnesota south to
 Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.
  

B. j. socorroensis, found on Socorro Island, Mexico.
 

B. j. solitudinus,  found in  the Bahamas and Cuba
 
B. j. umbrinus, found in peninsular Florida north to Tampa Bay and the Kissimmee Prairie.