While eggs hatch at other red-tailed hawk nests in Manhattan, the hawk behavior at St. John the Divine has gotten a little weird. Three days in a row this week, I found the female spending time away from the nest without the male taking over nest duty while she was out. If eggs had hatched in the nest, one would be worried about baby hawks being chilled by the cool temperatures we've had the last couple days.
Wednesday, Madeleine perched on the tall chimney at St. Luke's hospital for around 25 minutes and the hawks mated while she was there. Thursday I found both hawks perched at the chimney, and another mating session occurred while I watched.
And on Friday evening I found Madeleine eating dinner atop the chimney, taking longer than 20 minutes to finish the meal and then another 5 before she returned to the nest. Certainly the nest was unwatched part of that time, as Norman flew up and perched on the chimney alongside Madeleine for 6-7 minutes.
When Madeleine returned to the nest, she was out sight for a minute, then popped up and looked around.
Then flew out.
Then circled around and around, getting higher and higher. I thought she might be heading up to perch on Gabriel's horn until she suddenly plummeted back down into the nest and out of sight.
Norman put in another appearance a few minutes later, visiting the nest for a half a minute before leaving again.
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