7/19, Still Lurking

Between work and the heat, I skipped a few days of looking for hawks. Thursday evening by the cathedral I first found Phil the peacock watching over the domain.

Then bumped into Jim and Harry, the two blue peacocks, casually blocking traffic on the exit road from the close. And then despite the lack of robin chips or alarms from other small birds, spotted one of the red-tailed hawk youngsters lurking in a shady spot under the gloomy skies.

He was there for another 10 or 15 minutes, preening and looking around.

Then made a couple quick flights, zipping over to near the Peace Fountain then coming back to somewhere high in the same tree, before disappearing from sight.

With no further sign of activity, it looked like it was time to depart. As I thought about it, Phil came strolling past.

/p>

7/15, Poster Killer

Just one red-tail fledge in the cathedral close early Sunday evening.

Checking out the bushes by the pulpit and the surrounding lawn.

That rolled up poster leaning on the fence doesn't have long to live.

The fledge spend 10 minutes working over the paper, then strolled about a bit. Flew off when some tourists got too close, but returned to lurk on an overhead branch.

As the sky got gloomier, he eventually flew off into the trees to the east.

7/12, Chasing Squirrels

On Thursday, two of the cathedral red-tailed hawks fledglings spent much of the day practicing hunting in the south close. James watched them when the light was good, but I found them still out in plain sight in the early evening.

Both attacked miscellaneous stuff on the ground and made several futile swoops after squirrels. On the few occasion when one seemed to have something, the other had to come see what it was.

Even if it wasn't edible.

After about 15-20 minutes of this, one of the duo disappeared into the trees in the eastern side of the close. The second, though, remained in the pulpit area for some time.