The Tale of Pale Male (3 page)

By morning everyone knows what happened. Newspapers, TV, and radio all tell the story of the stolen nest on Fifth Avenue.

The next day watchers gather at the building.

Each day more bird lovers come, until the crowd grows to hundreds.

The apartment people are in a huff about the crowds.

So finally they meet with the watchers to discuss the situation.

Ah, victory!

The watchers convince the apartment people to let the hawks build a new nest.

A cheer goes up when the spikes are replaced.

The fledglings have grown up and gone, but Pale Male and Lola begin gathering twigs for their new nest—back and forth, back and forth...

because even for Red-tailed Hawks living atop a tall building, high above the traffic and crowds of New York City, there's no nest like home.

Pale Male, a Red-tailed Hawk so named because of his paler-than-usual coloring, was first sighted in New York City in 1991. After a few unsuccessful attempts at building a nest in Central Park, in 1993 he and his mate settled on a perch atop 927 Fifth Avenue, a twelve-story apartment just across the street. This was the first time Red-tailed Hawks had nested in Manhattan, and devoted bird lovers kept track of their every move.

Over the years Pale Male has had several mates—First Love, Chocolate, Blue, and Lola—and since 1995 he has fathered more than twenty chicks.

The removal of the eight-foot-wide nest and the pigeon spikes on December 7, 2004, galvanized bird lovers everywhere, but especially in New York City. The persistence of their protests led to negotiations with the board of the apartment building, which resulted in replacement of the pigeon spikes. Pale Male and Lola returned to build a new nest, and as of spring 2006, the hawks were still in residence there. But even if they move to another building, the hope is that they will continue to raise New York City chicks.