Fledge watch at the Grant's Tomb red-tailed hawk nest has been in progress a few days, but as of Sunday evening, none of the kids has made the first jump. However, eldest is looking ready to go any time.
Note that he is perched on the railing above the nest.
Other hawk watchers report he has been up on the railing quite a bit over the weekend, and that earlier Sunday he was making short little flights from one end to the other.
At the Grant's Tomb red-tailed hawk nest, sightings of the two nestlings remain a bit difficult due to the surrounding foliage. Nevertheless, occasional views can be had, and sometimes they can be caught looking back.
Their mama, Mrs. Grant, is spending more time away from the nest, albeit nearby. She is often found across the street, perching somewhere atop the International House.
The trees around the Grant's Tomb red-tailed hawk nest have leafed out, making it more difficult to watch the nest. Glimpses can be had of the nestlings, but until they get a bit bigger, glimpses may be all there is to see.
On a gloomy Thursday evening, the nestlings weren't to be seen at all, nor was mama in obvious sight. But around on the south side of the tomb, papa had apparently nailed a mouse or small rat. "The General" was eating dinner in one of the trees along the walkway leading to the tomb.
He also seemed a bit nervous, frequently looking around, and especially up and to the east. Perhaps he was concerned one of the Riverside Church falcons might put in an appearance.
Perhaps the meal had not been enough, as he also scanned the surround ground.
After perhaps 30 minutes he moved to another tree closer to the tomb. Scanned the ground there.
Then to a tree closer to the church, and as the light faded, he flew around the tomb to check on the nest.
On the first of May, the story at the two red-tailed hawk nests in Morningside Heights is quite different.
At Grant's Tomb, eggs have hatched and the two nestlings are roughly two weeks old. Old enough that on a nice evening, mama is willing to leave them snoozing on their own in the nest while she perches across the street.
Over at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, however, it appears that the hawks had an early nest failure and have "re-clutched". There the mama has been visible but barely so, her head poking up just a few inches above the nest as she broods a second clutch of eggs.
If things do go well for the cathedral nest on the re-try, it looks to be about another two weeks before we see signs of a hatch. So call it May 15.
First sighting of a baby red-tailed hawk in the Grant's Tomb nest was apparently made this past Wednesday evening. On Friday evening, two nestlings were definitely spotted up there.
About 6:30, Mrs. Grant was finishing up a feeding. She remained perched on the side of the nest as I wandered around looking for better camera angles.
Finally I settled on a spot a block away but from which a minimum of tree branches and leaves block the view.
At 6:50, there was some activity in the nest. Even from a distance of 200 feet, I could tell without a long lens that there was someone small moving about just to the side of her. But a closer look at photos revealed there was a second fuzzy baby hawk head directly in front of Mrs. Grant.
Things quieted down again, but 15 minutes later, the babies were moving about again.
And it would seem that the babies are big enough, you can even catch a glimpse of a flapping baby wing as they move about.
It's likely to be a few more days before baby hawk(s) are big enough and strong enough for ground-bound watchers to spot them, but circumstantial evidence piles up that egg(s) have hatched at the Grant's Tomb red-tail nest. Neighborhood birdwatchers have reported multiple occasions of watching feeding behavior this week.
Thursday evening I found the nest apparently empty. Apparently Mrs Grant was out getting some exercise and perhaps removing some inedible trash, as another watcher reported she had been there minutes earlier. She returned minutes after I arrived. She perched on the railings above the nest, preening and looking around and occasionally peering down into the nest.
After 15 minutes of that, she hopped down and settled into the nest to keep the baby or babies warm.
Wednesday marked 33 days since the female red-tailed hawk at Grant's Tomb, known to some watchers as "Mrs. Grant", was observed spending the night in her nest, indicating that she was either brooding her first egg or soon would be. Red-tail incubation time is roughly one month, so this week meant it was time to start keeping an eye on her behavior.
Nothing interesting was seen during a visit to Grant's Tomb on Monday, but Wednesday about 6:45 I caught what might have been the end of feeding activity. Mrs. G was bent over the nest and fussing about for about two minutes before she got back in.
So perhaps it was hopeful thinking, but that short bit of activity suggests that an egg has hatched in the Grant's Tomb nest. If similar behavior continues over the next few days, then we can be sure. If there is a baby hawk up there now, it will likely be another week or so before it is big enough to poke its head up high enough to be visible.
About 25 or 30 minutes later, Mrs. Grant was back up for a few minutes, but apparently just looking around as there was no fussing in the nest bowl.
Word has begun to roll in of Manhattan's female red-tailed hawks overnighting in their nests, an activity they will engage in not long before the first egg is laid. At one site, possible brooding has already been reported. On Friday evening, it looked like the two nests in Morningside Heights were among this group.
At St. John the Divine about 15 minutes before sunset, what appeared to be a hawk head was just visible above the edge of the nest. Possibly it was a piece of bark poking up, but there were solid arguments that it was actually a hawk.
First, whatever was poking up also moved about — not just from side to side as you might expect in a breeze but also dropping down a couple times.
But more importantly, on Thursday at about the same time, the two St. John's hawks performed what looked like a switch-off at the nest. That is: a hawk who had been perched on the hospital roof flew over to the nest, the other hawk then got up from the nest and left, and the first hawk plunked down into the nest. If it was indeed a switch-off, then it also means that the St. John's nest likely has egg(s) in it — a week earlier than it has in the past.
Up at Grant's Tomb, there have been reports all week about the female either being busy in the nest or else lurking close by. Friday at sunset, it wasn't immediately clear whether she was up there. Something like tail feathers were poking up from the nest, but I've seen that before and it turned out no hawk was there.
But 15 minutes later after darkness was setting in, and the cold had prodded me to head south, I looked back to see that the female was definitely up there. She had stood up to make some adjustments to the nest contents.
If the Grant's Tomb nest was on the same schedule as last year, then this weekend was about the right time for an egg to be laid. Possibly that's already happened, but possibly the female is still just doing an overnight.
Elsewhere, the bachelor hawk of Riverside Park was spotted by a couple people early Tuesday evening, lurking about his usual haunts in the 113th-114th St. area.
It's winter, which means that should you have time for a stroll in or by a park, it's much easier to spot any hawks who might be lurking about. Late Monday afternoon, just before sunset, I strolled up Riverside Drive in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, and found a red-tailed hawk in Riverside Park between 114th St. and 115th St., about two blocks south of where this past summer's 116th St. nest was (and still is) located.
It was casually watching the area, but not peering around intently as it would if it were hunting. Perhaps it was simply digesting and drying off.
Extreme photo manipulation on Photoshop suggests that the bird was an adult. Although the overall tail color was not obvious because of the gloomy light, there seems to be only a single dark transverse bar near the tip of the tail feathers rather than the multiple stripes of a juvenile's brown tail.
Fifteen minutes later up the street at Grant's Tomb, I found what appeared to be both of the resident pair of adult red-tails going to roost for the night on opposites sides of the walkway leading to the monument. Unfortunately, by that point it was just past sunset, and the light was too poor for photography.
The blog has been quiet a while, right in the middle of what should be one of the busiest times for watching young hawks. Much of that has been because I have had poor luck in finding hawk fledglings so there has been little news to report, but it's also because the news has been bad.
As you may have heard, the red-tail fledgling from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine who was injured and taken to rehab has died. She had managed to fly as far as Manhattan Ave. in the 109th-110th area and crashed. Although no broken bones were found when the vet did X-rays, the young bird had a spinal injury that left her legs paralyzed and also was causing pain. After a week in which treatment was having no effect and her condition was instead deteriorating, there was no choice but to euthanize her.
Adding to the misfortune, a few days later we learned that one of the young red-tails at the nest at Riverside and 116th St. has also died. The best guess is that this bird died of frounce, a diease caught from eating the wrong part of an infected pigeon. The hawk died at the nest; I don't know whether it the one who had not yet fledged when I last visited the site, or if it was a fledgling who had returned to the nest.
And for those who wondered why no reports about the Grant's Tomb hawk nest in so very long, it's because the one hawk nestling at that location apparently died during the last week of April, aged somewhere between two and three weeks. No one knows what happened there, just that the baby was visible in the nest the weekend of April 23 and then by late the following week could not be seen.
So it's been a bad-luck season for the three red-tailed hawk nests in Morningside Heights. We hope that the three baby hawks who were last known healthy are remaining so, and will report on them when we next get some pictures.
Following are various photos taken at the three red-tailed hawk nest sites in Morningside Heights during the past week.
First, the nest inside Riverside Park at 116th St., where we find the female settling down after a feeding on Monday...
With the male perching in a nearby tree as sunset approached...
And on Thursday at the 116th St. nest, mama checks over the baby(s)...
Up the street at Grant's Tomb, I was a bit confused on Thursday. We either had a situation where the male conducted a feeding of what seems may be a single baby in the nest, or else the male kept watch over the nest for an extended period approaching sunset after mama did the feeding.
In any event, parent 1 perches above the nest while parent 2 does the feeding...
And on Friday, mama guards the nest while the baby snoozes after a feeding...
And finally, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, mama Madeline kept an eye on things after finishing a feeding on Thursday evening...
On Thursday we saw that there had been a hatch at the hawk nest at Riverside and 116th St., and late Friday afternoon came word from its near neighbor to the north. In fact, we learned that not only did the Grant's Tomb red-tail nest have its own baby hawk, the hatchling looked big enough to be a week old. An additional report later in the weekend indicated that one of the neighborhood birdwatchers had indeed seen feeding behavior at the Grant's Tomb nest the weekend before.
But unfortunately for me, by the time I made it over to Grant's Tomb nest on Friday, baby hawk viewing was over. Baby was snoozing, and mama had perched on the side of the nest keeping watch.
I ended up wandering about the area, exploring for alternative viewing angles. There was even a spot in front of the tomb steps where you could look between the swings of a large eagle statue and through numerous tree branches, and see the nest at the top of the light stanchion.
At one point it did look like maybe mama was preparing to start another feeding. She was bent over something fuzzy along the side of the nest, although it looked like the carcass of some prey. But no, no sign of a baby hawk popping up for food, and late dinner did not ensue. Drat.
And again mama perched on the side of the nest where she could an eye on things.
