Red-Tails in Love

Marie Winn is our guide into a secret world, a true wilderness in the heart of a city. The scene is New York’s Central Park, but the rich natural history that emerges here–the loons, raccoons, woodpeckers, owls, and hundreds of visiting songbirds–will appeal to wildlife lovers everywhere. At its heart is the saga of the Fifth Avenue hawks, which begins as a love story and develops into a full-fledged mystery.

At the outset of our journey we meet the Regulars, a small band of nature lovers who devote themselves to the park and its wildlife. As they watch Pale Male, a remarkable young red-tailed hawk, woo and win his first mate, they are soon transformed into addicted hawk-watchers. From a bench at the park’s model-boat pond they observe the hawks building a nest in an astonishing spot–a high ledge of a Fifth Avenue building three floors above Mary Tyler Moore’s apartment and across the street from Woody Allen’s.

The drama of the Fifth Avenue hawks–hunting, courting, mating, and striving against great odds to raise a family in their unprecedented nest site–is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking. Red-Tails in Love will delight and inspire readers for years to come.