Manhattan hawk can come home, fan faces charges

The Manhattan apartment building that ran afoul of bird lovers when it evicted Pale Male the hawk, began restoring his nest on Wednesday.

The Manhattan apartment building that ran afoul of bird lovers when it evicted the red-tailed hawk known as Pale Male began restoring his nest on Wednesday as one of the bird's staunchest supporters faced harassment charges.

HT Image

Lincoln Karim, 43, who runs the Web site www.palemale.com and battled in recent days to have the nest restored, appeared in court accused of accosting CNN anchorwoman Paula Zahn, her husband, Richard Cohen, who heads the building's co-op board, and their two children.

Bird lovers, including Karim, have gathered outside the ritzy Upper East Side building for the past week, staging noisy protests to contest the apartment's abrupt removal of Pale Male's nest and the metal spikes the supported it.

The hawk's decision to build his home 12 stories above Central Park in 1993 made him a local spectacle and the subject of a book and documentary film.