Palisades Interstate Park, NJ (6/4/2022)

    Afternoon in the Palisades  

     A woman shouted at me on the bridge, "Well if you see someone standing there, slow down!" A muscular shirtless man was blocking the bike lane. He would have beat me in a fight. I arrived in the park a little before 12pm.  

    The sound of indigo buntings singing welcomed me in the southern section. Also, a lot of car traffic between Edgewater entrance and the Englewood Picnic area. The Dyckman Hill Road between Palisades Avenue and the Englewood Picnic Area, still stripped and clogged with debris from hurricane Ida, was closed to all traffic. So the 4.6 miles of River Road between Englewood and Alpine was closed to car traffic too. 

    The overly sweet aroma of falling royal paulownia flowers constantly wafted through the park. From across the river in Inwood in late spring you can see the garlands of paulownia blossoms appear in strands around the vertical rock faces.

    At each boat basin I spent a good amount of time following swallows around with my binoculars. I was able to identify two northern rough-winged, a bunch of barn and one or two possible cliff swallows. 

    A singing worm-eating warbler, about half a mile north of the Englewood Cliffs Boat Basin, was a nice surprise. The loud insect-like buzz rang down from the hill above the road. Had I not started so late in the day, it would fun climb up and find a chance for a picture. At Greenbrook falls I stopped to eat half and sandwich and check on the bald eagle nest. The two juveniles were branching out. 

    After 4pm I finally made it up to Alpine. Immediately I scanned the cliff faces above the parking lot. A peregrine landed on a ledge and appeared to tear at some prey under their talons. This jumped out to me as a possible nest site.  Time and remaining daylight already felt like an issue. I had to choose between one of two peregrine territories I knew of. 

    I reached the top of the big cliff stretch north of Bombay’s Hook around 5:30pm. At the first ledge a black vulture flew directly passed me. I walked to the next ledge and found a good angle of the vulture perched, just under the shadow of the clifftop trees. A few moments later the vulture dropped off the cliff and as it flew north a peregrine emerged from a ledge somewhere below, agitated and vocal. As I watched through my binoculars the peregrine dive bomb the vulture a loud rustling sound of swooshing feathers swept passed my head. A young bald eagle headed directly into the peregrine territory. The peregrine quickly took notice, forgot about the vulture and antagonized the eagle. The eagle promptly changed course. After three dive bombs upon the eagle the peregrine headed back to ledge near the top of the cliff wall. 

      I continued north up to the next lookout. The peregrine emerged again to harass a different intruder and afterward returned to the same ledge. I continued north along the trail to where I planned to eat my lunch, by now after 5pm. When I snuck off trail one final time before the lunch stop, my presence at the clifftop agitated the peregrine again. The falcon kakked incessantly, lacing figure-eights in the air, eye-level with me. The falcon eventually settled back on her dead snag perch. I laid on my belly and looked over. Just below the ledge where I stood about 15 feet down I could see four downy-white falcon chicks.

    This is my third season visiting this territory and the first time seeing falcon chicks. I hope to have an opportunity in the near future to monitor their progress. As I left the area I could see a second peregrine high up, appearing faintly in the pure blue of the sky. The male partner?

By the time I crossed the bridge back into NY it was nearly 9pm.