It's not 100% certain, but reports from other hawkwatchers early Wednesday suggest that all the baby hawks at the Grant's Tomb nest have fledged. They reported that the nest was empty in mid-morning and early afternoon, but none was actually able to find all three of the young birds. It's possible that the third fledgling merely made a short trip from the nest to a nearby treetop and then returned later.
Why "returned later"? Come early evening, two of the young hawks were on the nest platform. One plainly had a full crop, so it seems that they were there because that's where dinner was delivered.
Efforts to find the third young bird seemed to be in vain.
One of the pair in the nest was looking into nearby trees, but I didn't think to check if it was because the third was somewhere in that direction.
Finally some blue jays started aggressively calling out near the northwest corner of the tomb retaining wall, and sure enough, there was the third young hawk.
Its scrambling behavior in changing from branch to branch was much like that of fledge 2 in the trees by the playground on Tuesday. That it was the same bird seemed confirmed by the tuft of white fuzz still attached just above the top of its beak.
It tried another tree about 30 feet away.
But found the blue jays would follow. Also, that branch is at a sharp diagonal.
It tried changing position, slipped, fell, and started flying. Moments later it was 80 feet away in a tree near the lawn between the tomb and the playground.
Adult supervision was present pretty much the entire time.
No comments:
Post a Comment