Checking on the Riverside Park hawk nest at 116th St. to see if there had finally been a fledge, I found only one young hawk in the nest at the start of the evening.
It was obviously paying attention to something over toward Riverside Drive, and other watchers in the area pointed out that an adult was perched across the street.
But perhaps there was something else that way?
Indeed. Perched almost directly above the head of the hawkwatchers, about 50 feet up and some 30-40 yards from the nest was the other baby hawk.
Whether the young bird had managed to fly over there, no witnesses were around to say. And maybe it had done some crazy amount of branching in order to work its way to a tree above the park's upper walkway. But even if the latter, it's far enough away from the nest that such effort should count as having fledged.
So congratulations, little one.
And meanwhile, mama was perched atop the Paterno apartment building.
But then took off on her rounds.
The fledgling rotated around so that its back was to the sun. It settled in for some preening, and ogling of the passers-by below.
Then mama returned, perching atop 448 Riverside.
Besides keeping an eye on the kids, mama also had other concerns. The next door neighbors, relatively speaking, are not friendly. One of the Riverside Church peregrine falcons was also on patrol.
Mama took off again, but a bit later there was a noisy confrontation overhead when she and the falcon met up. Some screeching and then everyone returned to their corners. Okay for now, but this could get ugly in the coming weeks as the baby falcons also fledge.
One last look at the fledgling in sunset light.
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