It looks like egg laying has started on Fifth Avenue, but the mother is acting a little inexperienced. She stood and preened after sunset for at least half an hour tonight. She may not have laid all of her eggs yet so “no worries”, but the behavior seemed out of place. I guess we have a young mother.
This is going to be a fun season. I suspect everything will be slightly different now that we have a new female.
The male at Washington Square was hard to find this afternoon. He only made a few appearances and flew towards Broadway at dusk. The tall buildings on the square make it difficult to figure out where he goes, and how large the territory is. Could it be as far east as Tompkins Square? How far into the Village? Does it go south to Houston?
The Dark Female (Ginger/Lima) spend another night on the nest this evening. Around 7:40 p.m. she circled the area of the hawk bench and then landed on the nest.
My original hypothesis about this year’s nesting seems to be holding true. I thought that the Dark Female, who was hanging around with a young hawk who she stole food from, didn’t yet have the hormones to bond properly with Pale Male in January.
This allowed the Pale Female (Pale Beauty) to come in and try to bond with Pale Male later in the season. But I think she was too young to lay eggs yet, so things didn’t work out. She never seemed interested in the nest. I believe this allowed the Dark Female, who was now more motivated to mate since the days were much longer, to move in and displace her.
Even though it was late in the season, I wasn’t concerned. Triggers other than longer days must play a part in getting a female to ovulate. This must include copulation, nest building, constant displays of food by the male, etc. With help from other hawk watchers, we estimated that it would take three to four weeks for the Dark Female to ovulate from the date of her return. It’s been sixteen days since the Dark Female returned, and now our timing estimates look like they might be correct. I certainly hope so!
I finally got a chance to visit St. John the Divine on Sunday. The St. John the Divine Red-tailed Hawk pair go into stealth mode when they nest. The nest allows either parent to completely hide on the nest and the the parent who is off the nest usually stays hidden before the eggs hatch.
I spent an hour and half at the nest and only got to see the parents for about a half minute during an exchange.
I arrived late in the afternoon, and realize I’m going to have to arrive earlier in the day to see some hunting. The male spent most of his time perched on either a flag pole or on the cross.
There was a brief bit of activity while he escorted a hawk from the western side of the park to the east which included a few stops along the way.
While the nest is in a great location, the park really seems too small and too well used to raise fledglings in. It will be interesting to see what happens this summer.
(This is my 1,000 blog post. I never imagined making this many posts, when I started urbanhaws.com years ago.)
As the Dark Female begins to settle in, Pale Male has been introducing her to his full territory which includes the Beresford Apartments at 81st and Central Park West. Pale Male eat and gave leftover to his new mate on the south tower of the building on Saturday.
