Back in their old home, hawks’ family growing

? New York’s high-rise hawks are expecting an addition to the family.

Pale Male and his mate, Lola, who live on the ledge of a Fifth Avenue apartment building overlooking Central Park, have at least one egg in their nest, according to the Pale Male.com Web site run by Lincoln Karim, a video engineer with Associated Press Television News who devotes most of his spare time to monitoring the birds.

Red-tailed hawk Lola, left, eats a meal brought to her by her mate, Pale Male, at their nest atop a posh co-op apartment building on New York's Fifth Avenue, where the birds were taking turns sitting on at least one egg. Owners of the building removed the huge nest on Dec. 7 on grounds it was a health and safety hazard, but they later bowed to public outrage and pressure from the city and environmentalists to have its underpinnings reinstalled.

In December, the board of the co-op apartment building, whose tenants include actress Mary Tyler Moore and CNN anchor Paula Zahn, removed the hawks’ huge nest on a 12th-story ledge, calling it a hazard.

The board later bowed to public outrage and pressure from the city and environmentalists, and restored a row of anti-pigeon spikes that the hawks had used to anchor their nest. Pale Male and Lola immediately rebuilt their nest.

The male hawk has sired 23 chicks with four mates since he first set up housekeeping at 927 Fifth Ave. in 1993.

Volunteers use the Web site to record every detail of the hawks’ lives.

“Lola appears to be turning the eggs every half hour or so. Pale Male had two sittings today between noon and sunset,” said an entry posted Sunday.