Pale Male sighting

[Patti from Kentucky]

My sisters and I (and Jeane and brother-in-law Lane) traveled to NYC in early November to watch Laura (middle sister) run the New York Marathon.  This adventure included a wander through Central Park, ending at the model boat pond where we got to see Pale Male atop his nest!  The usual suspects were there with scopes, so we took advantage of that.  This photo was taken with our normal camera at high zoom...he's still pretty far away, and it doesn't help that he's on the shady side of the building.  Full photo album to come some day -- I'm about 7 months and 2.5 trips behind...

[Donna]

Soon as I hear Central Park, I think of Pale Male. For so far away, it's a great pic Patti. Always love seeing him. Thanks. No sign of the missus?

[Kris G.]

You're so lucky to have seen him!  Great pic even though it was a distance!

[Paul Hamilton]

That's a really good picture!  For those of you who have not been to the Model Boat Pond, the sight lines to the nest are not good and the nest is quite far away.  It's very hard to photograph.  I felt that Pale Male's light coloring was much more distinctive in person than in photographs -- did you have the same reaction?

Paul

[Patti from Kentucky]

That's a really good picture!  For those of you who have not been to the Model Boat Pond, the sight lines to the nest are not good and the nest is quite far away.  It's very hard to photograph.  I felt that Pale Male's light coloring was much more distinctive in person than in photographs -- did you have the same reaction?

Paul

That's true; I think the photograph tends to emphasize the contrast rather than the absolute coloring.  However, even in the photograph you can see that his belly band is not very apparent, his head is blondish, and he's got that white streak down the front of his face.  If you look at photos of him next to Lima (like this one: http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/palemale-store_2182_373216685), you can see she's got a very dark belly band, and very dark head.  After we'd left the guys with the scopes and were heading out of the park, we saw a hawk in the air who landed on a building even further away...but based on the coloring (very bad light again), we're pretty sure she is Lima (note the much darker head and belly band).

So in answer to Donna, I think we did see the missus!