You may not have to worry about people activity disturbing the nesting
red-tails.

There has been a pair of Red-tailed Hawks nesting on Fifth Ave. and 73rd
St. in New York City for five years now. A heavily-used area of Central
Park is across the street and tens of thousands of New Yorkers nest in
towers on the other three sides (Mary Tyler Moore is in the same building
and thinks the hawks are wonderful and Woody Allen is on the other side
of 73rd and likes that the hawks keep the pigeons off his penthouse).

Tangentially speaking, when the hawks first started nesting on that
building, Woody Allen was in the news having to do with that Soon Yi
(sp?) stuff and every morning there would be several dozen people, often
with telescopes, looking in his direction. Of course, those people were
looking at the hawks and not his apartment, but I wonder what he thought
before he found out that we were birders.

Another tangent: An anonymous pigeon-hater was putting out poisoned
pigeon bait somewhere on the upper east side (the neighborhood the hawks
nest in) and killed who-knows-how-many pigeons and the mother hawk.
Nearly killed one of last year's immatures, who was caught and
rehabilitated. The male found a new mate and continued nesting.

There is a book about the hawks and birding in Central Park in general
called "Red-tails in Love" by Marie Winn. I enjoyed the book immensely,
but then, I know a lot of the people mentioned in it so I might be
biased.

Happy bird-day,
Ken

Ken Gale
New York City
nuffsaid at escape.com