The final Houston Street fledge occurred on Friday the thirteenth.  It started out with a mid-afternoon fledge, followed by the usual struggle to find the fledgling, who ended up being just across Houston street.  The young fledgling was doing well hopping from branch to branch.

In the early evening, the parents arrived with the father quickly leaving.  The mother then took a rodent and flew back and forth along the top of the school, stopping on drain pipes and air conditioners to attract the fledgling back to the school.  The fledgling soon took the hint to come north back to the school flying over Houston Street.

The fledgling crossed the road, but couldn’t gain any height nor could it find a landing spot on the school.  It tired to grab the corner of the building but it ended up gliding into the street.  Luckily, we had two quick thinking hawk watchers at the site.  Edwin who stopped traffic and Adam who picked up the bird.

Then it got difficult.  A crowd had formed and followed Adam Welz, who had picked up the hawk.  Luckily, Adam has experience with raptors where he lives in South Africa.

He needed a safe space to release the hawk, but people were crowding him and touching the hawk upsetting it.  He couldn’t release it on the ground, and had nowhere to put it.  As I went to get a cardboard box, a housing authority policeman came and took the hawk away in an animal carrier.

This nest is surely at a difficult site.  Let’s hope the policeman took the hawk to a proper facility and it gets to a rehabilitator, who can return it to the site.

As dusk fell, the mother stayed on a lamp post looking for her fledgling until it got dark, and she roosted in a nearby tree for the evening.

Update: The bird is safely with its siblings, in Bobby Horvath’s care.