Birds of Sunset Park: Swainson’s Hawk, surprise visitor to Sunset Park

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about the Sunset Park Swainson’s Hawk. Well, maybe not exactly exactly, but it was January 2023 and I was in a car in northern Massachusetts on an 18-hour-long, Maine-and-back quest to see not one but five rare birds! (In case you’re wondering, they were: Smith’s Longspur, MacGillivray’s Warbler, Mountain Bluebird, Sage Thrasher and Townsend’s Solitaire.) Someone got a rare bird alert about the Swainson’s, which had been discovered on Staten Island. Swainson’s Hawks are common in the Western U.S. and it’s not uncommon for them to stray east at times, but they winter in Argentina, so to say that this bird was a little off track would be putting it lightly!

In the car that day, I was sad I was not around to see my first Swainson’s Hawk. Yes, every birder from the tri-state area — except those of us in the car! — was seemingly getting stunning, close views of this amazing raptor, but the fact that we were chasing a quintet of rarities definitely softened the blow. The following day, I did go out in search of the Swainson’s, but the bird decided to go missing just before I arrived, and then stayed missing for about a month, until it was spotted in Green-Wood Cemetery. Shortly afterward, it was found to have made its winter home at the waterfront Sims Municipal Recycling Facility at 30th and Second in Industry City, which had an obvious appeal due to the abundance of rats there.

I learned of the Swainson’s presence at Sims via a flurry of texts from friends letting me know that this prized bird was suddenly right on my doorstep! I was in the middle of a party in my building, but I excused myself — and then sprinted to the subway, took the R two stops, sprinted to Sims, frantically took a couple pictures of the bird, which was perched strikingly on a light fixture, then rushed to get a bus back home. I returned to the party a mere 35 minutes after I’d left, an absolute miracle. If anyone asked me to repeat such a feat of speed again, I doubt I could do it.

Ironically, the Swainson’s ended up hanging out at Sims for weeks on end, giving me ample opportunity to observe it at my leisure, though the views were never as close as that first time. Any New York area birders who had missed the Swainson’s show on Staten Island, now went to pay their respects to the bird. I myself took multiple friends to see it, helping them to distinguish it from its close relative the Red-tailed Hawk. (Red-tailed Hawks have pale underwings, a dark belly band and a pale throat, while a Swainson’s has dark underwings and dark on the belly that extends up to its throat and head.) Even more amusingly, the same Swainson’s Hawk returned to Sims for a winter vacation again in 2024, and then again in 2025!

At the time of writing, the Swainson’s Hawk has not yet returned to its happy hunting grounds in Sunset Park. Getting to Sims to look for its potential return, however, has become a little more tricky lately due to the presence, also at 30th and 2nd, of another individual typically expected to spend the winter months in South America: (newly former) president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro. Access to Sims along 30th Street is blocked by a police barricade, as Maduro is being held in the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center, right next to Sims. Getting a clear view of Sims is also increasingly difficult due to the ongoing construction of the Empire Wind plant, which is right in front of it. Seemingly there are still yummy rats around (at least the Red-tailed Hawks at Sims think so!), so hopefully the Swainson’s Hawk will return once more this year. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for it, and will update this article online if it returns after the paper has gone to print. Of course, if you wander past Sims and see a hawk that looks just a little different, please let me know!