May 17, 2011

5/17, First Good Look

It's taken so long for the cathedral red-tail babies to become easily visible that they're already well into the transition from baby down to growing feathers.

My timing was finally right on Tuesday evening, as I got a good look at one baby at about 6:25.

Cathedral Red-Tail Nestling

Already standing up close to the edge of the nest, and pretty sizable, too. I wonder if it's female. (Girl hawks are a bit bigger.) Whatever, the nestling was only visible for about three or four minutes, but that's better than the three or four seconds that we were getting last week.

One adult passed over about five minutes later, but it wasn't until close to 6:45 that one came to the nest. Looked like Isolde was delivering a fresh green stick.

Isolde Delivers a Branch

She spent a couple minutes apparently maneuvering the stick into a good spot and then took off. One of the babies (it's looking more and more like just two) popped up a minute later.

Cathedral Red-Tail Nestling

But settled back down pretty quickly.

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