The Riverside Park Red-tail Nest, Blackwater Eaglets, and NY Botanical Garden Wildlife

Photograph by Francois Portmann
Cars rumble past the new Riverside Park Red-tail nest. This time in a nice sturdy crouch of a tree instead of out on the end of a limb.

Photograph by Francois Portmann
Both hawks are mature enough this year that both sets of eyes have gone dark.


Photographs by Francois Portmann
A tiercel's work is never done when it comes to choosing and transporting twigs.

Photographs by Francois Portmann
But there is time for exuberant flying for bonding as well.

Photographs by Francois Portmann
Has this twig been chosen from the ground instead of being clipped?

Photographs by Francois Portmann
That takes balance.

Photographs by Francois Portmann
Why are some twigs carried in the beak crosswise and some in the talons lengthwise? One thing is that those in the beak would need to have a balance point that was beak size.

Photographs by Francois Portmann

Photographs by Francois Portmann

Photographs by Francois Portmann
Proudly atop the nest, checking the view.

Photographs by Francois Portmann

Photographs by Francois Portmann
This stick would not be very beakable.

Photographs by Francois Portmann
Taking a break in nest building to make something to go into the nest.
Note the tiercel's curled under talons. As Francois says, "Quite the balancing act."

Photograph by Francois Portmann
Speaking of which, is isn't as if the formel can dig her talons into the metal of a lamp post. She looks to be keeping them both in position by pure pressure through the tips of her talons.

Photograph by Francois Portmann
Bark, an important ingredient of nest building is often used in the bowl of the nest.

Photograph by Francois Portmann

Photograph by Francois Portmann

Photograph by Francois Portmann

Photograph by Francois Portmann
BEAUTIFUL !!!

Courtesy of the Blackwater Eagle Cam
Thanks to Robin of Illinois for the screen capture and as she says, "They are getting soooo big!" And boy, aren't they? The growth of young raptors continues to astound me no matter how many times I see it happen.

Photo by Pat GonzalezThe NY Botanical Garden Red-tail has a good scratch. Very smartly closing her eyes for the process. For as Pat says, "Yikes. Look at those talons." And here is some footage she shot as well--Donegal:
Here’s footage of some water fowl I shot earlier today at the NY Botanical Garden. I can’t find this white duck in any of my guides. She or he is always surrounded by both male and female mallards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ4nHYApk4k&feature=channel_page
Also, here’s a male cardinal eating some of the unshelled, unsalted sunflower seeds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_J_V8UU_bw&feature=channel_page
Pat

Riverside Red-tail Teaser, the M's--Red-tails on County Rd. M, and the Roadside Human Habituated Hawk

Photograph by Francois Portmann, www.fotoportmann.com/

One of the Riverside Park Red-tails takes on a lengthy stick, no twig this, for nesting material. Look at those talons!

Francois just sent in 20, count 'em , 20 gorgeous Riverside Pair photos, which you will have to wait until tomorrow to see, as tonight's blog already has so many behavior photos (mine not nearly as nice as Mr. Portmann's batch but documentation none the less) on it that it is having trouble swallowing another photograph no matter what. Something to look forward to for tomorrow!

First off the mystery hawk, which I didn't know was a mystery at first and in fact probably isn't a mystery at all. You tell me.

Therein lies a tale.

Sunday, I was making my way from one town to another on a two lane road. I was proceeding at the speed limit but there was an unsafe person who had his car only a few feet from my bumper attempting, and not subtly, to hurry me along.

This is very bad manners as well as very bad in the safety department so on principle I never allow myself to be hurried by a tailgater. In fact I may slow down a mile or two, as there is no safety margin between me and the dope behind me and it will make it easier for Dope to pass..

Suddenly I see the unmistakable shape of a hawk in a tree overlooking some play equipment. Right there! Practically on the road off to my left. I hit the blinker, the brakes, and quickly cut onto the verge, to the blare of the Dope laying on his horn. Beyond tailgating, Dopes also love their horns. Poor dears must be very needy for notice and attention.

This little guy was just too good to miss. I needed to look at him and not have him flee. I'm beginning to get a complex.




Understand I'm having a habituated-to-humans-hawk withdrawal. Urban hawks for the most part tend to allow humans within a certain range and Pale Male, who isn't the Monarch of Central Park for nothing, knows his status and will eat his dinner only a few feet above your head, no prob. It's wonderful to be allowed to cohabit a space in that way. He wouldn't want to be picked up for instance, I don't blame him, I wouldn't either in the middle of dinner, but barring manhandling he's very cool about people. They are just part of his landscape.

And here was a hawk who wasn't going anywhere. Cars blazing past, horns honking, and he is in stealth mode hunting a playground (Children aren't the tidiest with snacks you know so the leftovers bring in the tasty rodents) just like a city hawk. When I stopped the car and stuck my camera out the window, lens extended, he gave me a look, and then went right back to his rodent vigil.


My kind of hawk! Now I took him to be a Red-tailed Hawk.

Which he may well be as I can see just a touch of rufous in his tail feathers but...? It's just that when I loaded the photo I realized that he has no belly band. I zoomed in and the very faint marks might be twig shadows. And his back isn't the warm brown with pale speckles of a Red-tail, it appears at least, to be almost black except for that reddish patch on his wing? Back?

It could be chromatic aberration, that purple halo along the images of backlit images, which is a drawback to digiscoping. And the blackness nothing more than contrast with his sun kissed blindingly white front. I get out the field guide and decide he must be a Red-tail as I can't see any species that fits more readily. No red-patched hawk has a white belly unless it also has a barred tail.

Now to an incident that occurred on the weekend with the Ms, who's nest is in the mid-field oak tree on County M Road.

After seeing groups of three crows attack Red-tail nests numerous times and hence the Red-tails who own them, in Crow attempts to either run them off and or to raid the nests themselves, I've decided that when you see a group of three Crows it is a Crow Raiding Party. Or to put it more gently, they are a Crow Foraging Party. And part of what they'd like to forage are some tasty RT eggs or young. Also they want to look tough so the RTs don't think about feeding the Crow chicks to the Red-tail eyasses.

That said look at the photo above. Near the road is a very nearly perfect example of a perfectly shaped Oak tree and many people find it their favorite Oak. So the Oak near the road is Favorite Oak and the Oak in the middle of the field on the right is the Nest Oak.

I see three crows coming in from the South. Like well drilled militia they fly in and land on the tip top of Favorite Oak. There they sit and stare at the nest and the bird on it. The hawk tenses and sits much higher, ready for a possible battle?

After getting her adrenalin going, the three crows fly directly over Nest Tree, and seem to be continuing on. I think, oh good, the Crows aren't going to hassle the hawks today after all.





After getting her adrenaline going, the hindmost Crow just cannot resist ziping back round and doing a tempting swoop just past the parent. Mom doesn't take the bait. She isn't going to chase him and leave her possible eggs uncovered. The three Crows continue on across the field looking for birds who will fall for the feint.

Remember the last we saw the Ms from this view, the bird on the nest was pulling twigs out of other parts of the nest and poking them into this portion, over which I had been watching the sitter?

It is now 5:30PM Sunday and look at what they have done!

Look carefully and you will see an Oak-Leaf-Camo-Wearing Red-tail. The beak points towards the viewer and the right eye is obscured by leaves. The bird is using her left eye to keep tabs on me.

Here's a closer look. I'd say an excellent job in the camo department. I would think excellent against crows and unpleasant people with projectiles. Not a whole lot was going on in the way of activity and heavens I don't want to harass the poor wary dears so I went on my way.

Monday, 5:30PM--I'm hoping they will eventually get used to me and I am staying far away and using magnification. The pictures won't be perfect but the hawks will feel better about the whole thing.

Can you see the hawk head mid-point on the right side. That bird seems to be sticking to the nest very well and perhaps if I don't eye her, she will feel easier about the situation. I scan for her mate.

Aha! He's in the west treeline of the field, hunting. I'd seen him swoop down to the ground but I don't know if he got anything. He sees me, I have time for one quick click, and he flies off.

Landing on the branch of a tree further away to the south. Click, he looks, even though he appears to be at least a mile away.

Off he goes again. This time sticking to the tree line on the rear of the field. She follows the lines until she gets dead even with me on the far side of the field. Then strangely, she seems to come out of stealth mode.

Just beyond the edge of the field is a railroad track and a line of power poles.

She comes out of stealth mode and begins to pass back and forth in my sight line. Is she intentionally drawing my attention?

With each pass she gets slightly closer and slightly higher in the sky.

She turns and makes more altitude.


Still as if presenting herself to me she continues the pattern of higher and closer.

Closer, higher

Then circling back for another increment in the loop.


She is now high enough and close enough to me that I begin to see the sun shining through her feathers.

A slight pass to the right and then almost directly over my head, I swing the camera straight up and at here and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the sun burns right into my wide open searching right eye behind the view finder. My left eye, the one without the currently fried cornea, catches her banking like a bullet and snapping onto the lip of the nest in a nano second.

SHE DID THAT ON PURPOSE! She intentionally got me to look at the sun so I'd be blinded and she could blaze over onto the nest with a chance of not being observed. She certainly wasn't observed by my right eye. And she not knowing the vagaries of view finders, didn't realize that my left eye would be better functioning than the other not having been flash fried. But it was a close thing, I might very easily have not seen where she went.

I look through the birding scope.

Guess who is obscuring her form and peeking around a branch?

She stands that way for a few minutes, note the other hawk got clean away without my having seen even a glimmer of the direction taken.

These hawks are some smart cookies.

Goodness, what will they do to me next?

I soon leave to investigate a second RT shaped nest across the way. Perhaps a second nest that they had made this season but in the end chose to use the nest in Nest Oak.

As I'm tootling along the road looking for a viewing spot of the second nest, I see two Red-tails circling with each other. Unlikely to be the two we've just been observing, this pair is most probably Steam and mate from Thresherman's Park.

Wait! There is a third raptor and it looks larger than the Red-tails. Perhaps the two RTs weren't getting ready to do a courship dance after all but rather were ushering an unwelcome visitor out the territory.

The larger bird circles at the correct angle to catch the sun. The belly and under-wings are pale and have turned golden with the late angled sunlight. The telling factor as to species are the "fingers" at the tip of the wing which are a definite black.

Wow! It is a Northern Harrier. All this time, the Harrier has been flying right above me. Perfect for a photo but extremely frustrating because my camera is incapable of geting a fix on this particular bird so it can focus.

I try over and over again, this Harrier is immune to my technology.

Now isn't that weird? It turns out that at least in this light against this particular sky this bird's feathers and coloring are invisible to my camera. My camera just can not grab it.

There's a possible evolutionary advantage for you.

Donegal Browne

Where Did That Nest Come From?

Friday I drove out of Milton on County M to do some errands as happens several times a week. I was scanning as usual for birds when what do I see but a blob in an Oak in the middle of a field. I slow down still scrutinizing. Wow, that looks the right shape for a Red-tail tree nest, rather like a martini glass, but there are any number of old unused nests near the road so I don't start giggling with glee. But I'd never seen this one before. How did I miss it?

To understand why I might have, but I've searched these trees many times as I drive by, so I don't think so--check it out. The tree in question is the one in the center of the photograph way out in the field. See the center split in the branches, the nest shape is high on the right of the split.

Double click on the photo and it should enlarge for a better view.



I had no magnification with me but what little was on one of my cameras so I clicked a few shots and went on my way, though for a moment I thought I saw movement. Wishful thinking, I say to myself, as I've been looking for a country nest that could be viewed from a public spot for years. All the active nests I've seen are on private property with no access on a daily basis.



Friday evening I downloaded the photographs, cropped them tight and looked. Hmmm. See the center branch coming out of the nest? Just to the right of that branch, there is a bit of a speckled lump. I was excited at first, "It's the back of a sitting Red-tail!" But then I realized it could be glints of light coming through an old nest or a dozen other things. Sigh. But worth another look on Saturday.



Saturday I arrived, at a time with far too much back light but at least I could stand on the edge of the road and get a look, without having to ask permission.
I set up the scope...



And this is what I see. A SITTING BIRD!!!! Hooray and hallelujah finally a possible chance to compare what I know about urban Red-tails with country hawks who may have a whole new set of environmental adaptions going on. And perhaps I hadn't just missed that nest previously, perhaps they just built it.

By this point, the Red-tail in the nest has changed from the one eyed look to the binoc version. As the formel spends ever so much time on the nest than the tiercel, I'll just think this is she until I find out differently.

5:18pm Oh no, she's getting up. Country birds are terribly wary of people and most likely right to be. Have I frightened her off the nest. That would be very bad. Remember I'm extremely far away but they really really don't like to be looked at.

She's going toward the far edge. Shoot, I hope I haven't totally petrified her. I start heading for the car with my stuff. But keep shooting with a hand held camera as opposed to digiscoping.

Is she attempting to get the tiercel's attention?

5:19PM And off the nest she goes, heading for the parallel tree line to the right and then just as the city hawks often do when being stealthy on the street, she turns the corner and sticks to the tree line on the far side of the field as well.

She lands on one of the power poles along the railroad tracks from which I often see Red-tails hunt.

5:19:57pm

Not until much later in the day, when I load the photos and zoom in tight and crop the life out of this one, do I realize that I've photographed a pair of hawks copulating. Perhaps I didn't scare them all that much after all. ???

And now there is a bird back on the nest. Which one? And who?

5:20PM And hawk is staring at me. If the hawks take me for a serious threat, I decide this is the tiercel as the urban males will often stand on the nest when there is a threat while the formel makes ready to attack an unwanted visitor. (Not me though, I may well bear watching but I'm certainly outside the attack perimeter. In the city, the attack perimeter is only a few feet from the next and I feel like I'm half a mile a way. Okay, maybe that 's exaggeration, at least a quarter mile away anyway.

More standing and staring.

5:22PM The hawk on the pole does a little preening. Perhaps Mom? Nest sitting is murder on your feathers.

Though I've gotten into the car, the bird isn't sitting on the eggs so I decide I better get out of the area. Perhaps I can see the nest through the hedgerow at the end of the field. I'd be further away and better masked as well.

Unfortunately the road at the end of the field has no verge onto which to pull off. Both sides of the road once you're off, immediately go into a very deep ditch. No place to pull off. The view is pretty sketchy too as the hedgerow is thick. Back to County M but this time I'm on the other side of the road, though it is the nest side, there is a vernal pond in a depression that is very brushy. Plus some brush on the grassy area, this might be alright.

Excellent! One of the hawks has gotten into the bowl of the nest.


This is where I'm standing to look at the nest. It is far more masked than the earlier area which didn't have the brush. It is farther away as well.

Being hawk-eyed the bird does of course know I'm there and is keeping an eye on me. But better to do that while sitting the eggs than not.


5:46PM Hawk starts taking twigs from the sides of the nest and placing them at the end of the nest.


About now, remember I was standing next to a wet area, a male Red-winged Blackbird starts scolding me from the brush. Another arrives to do the same. Good grief, I am really unpopular.

Back to the nest--I don't believe it, she is still tugging our twigs from other areas. Is she really building an obscuring wall between herself and me?

5:55PM I do think that she is! More working of twigs into my end of the nest.

5:56PM And more twigs! She really is building it up!

Also the Red-winged Blackbirds have gathered and are seriously mobbing me. Not only are they screaming their brains out, they've begun to swoop at my head. Okay, OKAY! I'm going!

Back to near the original spot for one more photograph to see what she has done since I've moved out of Red-wing country.

Look at that! No longer working on the rear of the nest she has hunkered down in an odd way so she can stick her head out and past a supporting branch to look at me over here.

6:12 PM Tip of the tail still showing out of the nest, I take off to finish my business. Later I'm told by one of the Rock River Thresheree locals, that I shouldn't turn off the engine of the car when I get out to look at the hawks. They will be far less frightened with the car running.

When you think about it it makes sense. Running tractors never bother them because a tractor is doing work. The person running the tractor has other fish to fry and is part of the landscape. A running car is also supposedly going about other business. Before hunters walk into the fields to shoot at things though, they turn off their cars.

Who knew my gasoline bill and carbon footprint was going to increase because of hawkwatching?

Donegal Browne