Urban Hawks

The weather cooled off this weekend, which made for an enjoyable time hawk watching.  These pictures are from Saturday and Sunday. 

After not having had a chance to visit the Riverside nest since Monday, I was rewarded on my Friday evening visit by lots of activity by both eyasses, and wonderful views of the both parents who perched ten feet from each other for over an hour.

Having both parents together allowed me to confirm a wonderful field mark for telling the two apart.  The female has only a hint of a black band at the end of her red tail feathers, while the male has a dark black band.

I arrived on Monday just after a feeding to find two hot and sleepy eyasses.  Not much happened except for a brief visit by the parents.  As I left the park, the mother was on a nearby tree and the father was on a lamp post above the Boat Basin Café.

The eyasses have begun to get aggressive about who gets each piece of food.  They’re so well fed by their parents, they don’t need to fight for food.  But instinct is instinct, giving us a few comical tug-o-wars!

I’ve had lots of hawk watchers as what’s next for the nest.  Eyasses have to be as big as their parents to fly, so we’ll see rapid growth over the next few weeks.  The eyasses will begin to practice flapping their wings and will explore branches in the tree.

The young fledge at 44 to 46 days of age, and the parents continue to feed their fledglings for another four to seven weeks.  During this time, the young gradually move farther from the nest, improve their flight abilities, and begin to hunt on their own.

This puts the fledge date for this nest somewhere in the third week of August, and the exploration of the park by the fledglings through to October.

The two eyasses were very active in the early evening.  The mother left them alone most of the time I was watching.   (Red-tailed Parents feel comfortable leaving there kids alone, once they are as old as this pair is.  I haven’t figured out triggers the change in behavior.  Is it a change in coloring, the size of the eyasses, or something else?)

If you haven’t visited the nest yet, make a point to see it this weekend.  It’s about two blocks north of the Boat Basin Café.