An hour and fifteen minutes of watching the hawk nest at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine early Saturday evening was almost a bust. Once could intermittently see part of Isolde's head poking above the edge of the next, but she never got up and the male did not put in an appearance.
Sunday looked to be even quieter, but then things got much, much more interesting. For a long boring spell of watching the nest, the only sighting of the hawks was perhaps of the tips of Isolde's tail feathers just barely poking above the nest edge. But about 6:50 as I was getting ready to leave for Sunday dinner, Isolde stood up and looked around a bit.
And also looked down into the nest a bit, too.
A couple minutes of this and she turned around.
And took off.
She flew west toward Amsterdam Ave., then returned three and a half minutes later. While I moved to a new position to get a better angle to see what she was doing, she suddenly took off again, this time heading south.
Minutes ticked by. I was reminded of the time a few years ago when Isolde was either brooding or had young babies in the nest and Norman was apparently not delivering food on the desired schedule. Isolde left the nest unattended then for 15 or 20 minutes before returning with some food.
This time, though, she was gone 10 minutes, flying in just a bit too quickly for me to tell whether she was carrying food.
But she stood over the nest a bit.
Then leaned down into the nest, moving about a bit so that all one could see from the street was her feathery underside slowly bobbing up and down. Ah-ha, it looks like feeding behavior. A few days later than I would have guessed, but it looks like there is now a baby hawk, or two, in the nest.
Great observation. Exciting.
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