On Monday the 18th I left work for 90 minutes or so and walked over to Central Park for a bit of birding. I went to the Ramble, mostly, though I also went around the lake. It was slow. I saw a Wood Thrush, some Redstarts and Robins, a Cardinal, Catbirds, and a Northern Waterthrush. The big sight of the day was a red tailed hawk. It was pointed our to me by a woman watching the bird. He was on a low branch about 20 yards away. We watched for a while, and I saw him take a massive pee, he just raised up his rump and squirted. I had never seen that before. I had to move on, and the hawk moved on. A little bit further along the path I saw the bird again and I asked a woman with bins, "Did you see the red-tail?"
She was extremely brusque in replying: "It's a Cooper's hawk."
I said, "Oh. Some woman told me it was a red-tail."
"IT's a Cooper's Hawk," she applied, even more brusquely.
Oh, well, it was a nice bird.