Wednesday, December 14, 2022

There Is Wildness All Around

Over the years, Gossips has reported often about the encroachment of wildness into our urban and urbane little city. Usually, what merits mention are bears who have wandered into our backyards and onto our streets. In 2018, it was a young moose seen making its way along Worth Avenue and a snapping turtle found nestled beside the Second Street stairs. Among the opossums and skunks and raccoons and deer that are fairly commonplace critters who find their way into Hudson, there are also raptors.

This morning, a reader who lives in the 3oo block of Union Street spotted a raptor in her yard and provided this picture.


The raptor was said to be bigger than a peregrine falcon or a red-tailed hawk. It was suggested it might be a northern harrier.  
COPYRIGHT 2022 CAROLE OSTERINK

4 comments:

  1. yes! I saw a grey fox blithely gallop up lower union just last night – incredibly beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Such a beautiful animal. For years Gray Fox have had a den at the western end of the causeway, though I've never seen one in town. Nice!

      Delete
  2. That's an immature Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii), the middle-sized Accipiter between the larger Goshawk and the typically smaller Sharp-shinned Hawk.

    At different times of year, all three can be seen in Hudson. But the Cooper's, a NYS "Species of Special Concern," is a regular all-winter visitor in Hudson, and occasionally even breeds here (more likely just outside city limits) which makes it a resident bird.

    The Cooper's main food source: pigeons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes! That's it exactly. Thank you for the ID help!

    ReplyDelete