Pale Male, Purple-Tailed Hawk Who Nested Above NYC’s Fifth Avenue for 30 Years, Dies at 33

NEW YORK (AP) — Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk who introduced a contact of the wild to swanky Manhattan as he nested above Fifth Avenue for 3 many years, has died.

Pale Male died late Tuesday after being discovered in poor health and grounded in Central Park, wildlife rehabilitator Bobby Horvath posted on Facebook. The hawk was believed to be 33 years previous.

Horvath posted that he picked Pale Male up and took him to his rehab group’s veterinarian, who did bloodwork and X-rays. The hawk later ate a small meal however remained weak and torpid, Horvath mentioned. “We hoped for any enchancment, however sadly it was not meant to be,” he mentioned.

Pale Male, so named due to his whitish plumage, was first noticed in Central Park as a juvenile in 1991 and started nesting on Fifth Avenue throughout from the park in 1993.

Fowl lovers crowded contained in the park to observe as Pale Male and his succession of mates hatched and raised their younger every spring.

The birders have been outraged in 2004 when Pale Male’s nest with then-mate Lola was ripped from its ledge on the twelfth ground of a ritzy condominium constructing whose residents included actor Mary Tyler Moore and CNN anchor Paula Zahn. Moore publicly opposed the nest elimination.

The co-op board, which had voted to take away the nest as a hazard, shortly reversed itself and restored a row of anti-pigeon spikes that the hawks had used to anchor their nest, and even added a brand new steel “cradle” on the ledge. Pale Male and Lola rebuilt their nest.

As his legend grew, Pale Male was the topic of a 2009 documentary, “The Legend of Pale Male,” and at the least three illustrated kids’s books.

Horvath wrote in his submit that Pale Male impressed chicken lovers and photographers world wide. Some took up chicken images professionally, he wrote, however “most have been simply native residents or vacationers who simply wished a possibility to get a glimpse of this well-known hawk.”

David Barrett, who runs birding Twitter accounts together with Manhattan Fowl Alert, mentioned that for a lot of Pale Male’s life “he was not solely the world’s most well-known red-tailed hawk, however he was most likely the world’s most well-known chicken, one that folks knew by identify.”

Barrett mentioned the hawk’s fame “exhibits that even in an intensely city place like Manhattan, there are a lot of individuals who have a keenness for wildlife and really feel a connection to it.”

It’s troublesome to know with 100% certainty that the hawk that died Tuesday was Pale Male, since Pale Male was by no means banded.

Some observers started questioning round 2021 if Pale Male had died and been changed within the Fifth Avenue nest by one other hawk who resembled him.

No eggs have been noticed within the nest in current breeding seasons, which Barrett mentioned factors towards the probability that the resident male hawk was the truth is an aged Pale Male, now not interested by propagating.

Horvath mentioned he believes the hawk whose last hours he witnessed Tuesday was Pale Male, a chicken he has been following for 20 years.

“I’ve rescued infants of his that have been poisoned,” Horvath mentioned in an interview. “I’ve a historical past together with his household.”

If Pale Male did reside previous 30, his life was one of many longest ever recorded for a red-tailed hawk. He survived a number of mates together with Chocolate, Blue, Lola and Lima. His most up-to-date mate was Octavia.

He’s survived by an unknown variety of descendants.

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