The Highbridge Park red-tailed hawk nest had some sort of weird problem this spring, with the hawks relocating to a new nest after the female had already started brooding. Hatch at the new nest likely occurred about two weeks ago, as the female was laying in the nest but acting fidgety when I checked on the site that weekend.
Late Saturday afternoon I checked in again. Although the nest is hard to watch, it's easy to find because of all the white wash spattering the park path below. I found the female Martha perched on the side of the nest, every now and agin leaning in to adjust something.
I scouted about to see if there might be a decent viewing spot I hadn't found before, and discovered one where about half the nest was visible. There was something white and fuzzy lying on that side of the nest. Then it started moving about and next thing I knew, a baby hawk head came up.
It looked around a bit and spotted me on a top of a rock 75 feet away.
Then it got up, stumbled across the nest toward Martha and plopped back down. No action for a while, so I assumed the nestling was taking a snooze.
As I made my exit up the park path, I looked back to the nest. Martha seemed to be making sure I was leaving.
As I watched for a few minutes more, Martha started a feeding. I could just barely see through the nest twigs as she passed off a few tidbits to a nestling.
But was there just the one nestling, or were there two on opposite side of the nest? It will take another visit to find out.
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