Pale Male and Ginger Look Into the Bowl of the Nest, or are they?

Pale Male and Ginger look into the bowl of the 927 Fifth Avenue nest.

This looking into the bowl stance is often seen when there is a hatch. That isn't it this time.

Are they looking at an abandoned egg?

Though some watchers think that Pale Beauty left an egg in the nest, a good proportion of other watchers don't think so.

I suppose they could be mulling whether there is enough bowl lining. Doubtful.

Interestingly, and somewhat unusual, Pale Male is standing on the same side of the bowl as the prey he'd tempted Ginger into coming to get by flying back and forth in front of the nest. Ordinarily he'd be on the other side of the bowl and she'd be on the side with the gift.

Of course we can't really say that Ginger isn't looking at the prey, can we? Check out the angle of her head. But then again, she could just be full to her eyeballs.

Is Pale Male pointing out where he'd like Ginger to be? I'm thinking that my be closer. He does seem to want Ginger to start sitting on the nest.

Is it just photoperiod that is "egging" him on? Or as Pale Male has trained so many young mates could he be concerned that she might not know it was "time" and just lay an egg any old place? (It does happen in females of smaller species, I don't know about raptors.) Trying to keep an egg from appearing in the wrong place would take some complicated thought on Pale Male's part, I admit. More likely he just instinctively feels like it is "time" and as such she should be on the nest.

And another good sign concerning up coming eggs, during the last couple of days, Ginger has been selecting more materials for the nest bowl.

And what is the business of Pale Male only hunting within sight of the nest for quite some time now? That's very unusual.

STAY TUNED!

Donegal Browne