Things seem to be just fine for the Riverside Hawks, although a rat baiting station in a small garden on the south side of Riverside and 79th Street, does have me worried.  Will rat poisons still be a problem this year?  Beyond this garden, it seems that a major source of poisons in city parks is from restaurant concessions, but there is still no legal language in their contracts to monitor/control their extermination plans.

When I arrived in the early afternoon, the male came in.  He landed on one branch, visited another with some old prey (either cached food or leftovers from his mate), and then visited the nest.  He then left and preened on a branch just north of the Boat Basin Café and flew out of sight.

The Riverside female Red-tailed Hawk has begun sitting on the nest north of the Boat House Café. She was there when I arrived early this afternoon.  She left briefly to copulate with the male and then returned to the nest mid-afternoon.  The male came to nest soon after the copulation with a rodent for his mate.  She eat it and then settled down into the nest.  She most likely hasn’t laid eggs just yet, but she should over the next week.

When both of them are on the nest together, there are some pictures that clearly show the female’s broken beak compared to the male’s.  Her beak is recovering nicely and shouldn’t pose a problem for the pair.  But it’s great to have some side by side comparison shots.

There were lots of trips to and from the nest and lots of time spend arranging the sticks.  Both hawks seemed to be eager to do the work, although the female seemed to measuring the placement of the sticks with her body and then rearranging much more than the male.

Later in the afternoon, nest building resumed.  They both gathered sticks.  Sometimes breaking off tree branches and sometimes picking them up from the ground.  When they picked them up from the ground, they also engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the local squirrels.  They are being very industrious.  Last year, they started nesting mid-March, so they do need to get the nest finished soon.

It looks rather certain now that 81st Street by the river will be the location of this year’s nest.  When I arrived Saturday afternoon, they were both high in the sky near the Normandy building.  They had spent the morning working on the nest and were taking a break.