Manhattan’s wildest outdoor dining scene may be the frozen surface of the Central Park reservoir.
Bald eagle R7 — or Rover, as he’s known to his fans — was spotted by numerous New Yorkers this week as he took a glide above Central Park before very publicly capturing and consuming what appears to be a seagull in the middle of the park’s partially iced-over reservoir.
“Central Park birders were recently treated to the uncommon sight of a bald eagle capturing a gull in mid-flight!” a wildlife-watch department of the state of Connecticut excitedly tweeted, before explaining some of Rover’s local history.
The breathtaking bird was banded by wildlife biologists in New Haven in 2018 and has been known to hang around the Big Apple since mid-2020.
His recent, brutal dinner outing was captured by numerous human parkgoers.
“Bald Eagle cruising over the Central Park Reservoir,” one observer captioned a glorious slow-motion video of Rover cruising high above the city’s streets, its iconic skyline behind him. “Only after finishing its meal on ice though,” the observer wrote alongside another video, this one of Rover chowing down on seagull guts before washing his mouth out with reservoir water.
“I just saw a bald eagle in Central Park catch and kill another bird (seagull?) and got it on film. Actual coolest thing ever,” another Rover onlooker captioned a more zoomed-out video of his self-serve dining experience.
Despite being a frequent visitor to NYC, Rover apparently decided to eschew hip social norms and eat his dinner quite early, at just 5:16 p.m. Tuesday, according to Manhattan Bird Alert.
While seeing a bald eagle casually hunting in Central Park is undeniably a rare sight, the birds have actually been having a nationwide resurgence recently. A 2021 report by the US Fish and Wildlife Service found that the number of American bald eagles has quadrupled since 2009, with an estimated 316,700 of the birds living in the lower 48 states.