Fifth Ave. Nest Report and The Cedar Waxwings, WI

Many thanks to Ludi Stern, old friend and new hawk watcher for the raw materials for today's portion of the blog on the Fifth Avenue Nest.
2:45 pm Pale Male on the nest.

3:01pm Lola to Stovepipe and preens vigorously.

3:08pm Lola fly-by of nest then to far right light fixture of Carlyle, Kestrel dives at her, he keeps it up.

3:09pm Lola off Carlyle, Kestrel follows and buzzes her.

3:10pm Lola back to nest.

3:11 Lola in Pale Male out, he's off to south and disappears into tree line.

3:15pm ?

3:28pm Lola pulls wet dead grass out, moves small twigs to higher position.
3:42pm Continues to move wet grass into higher spot.
3:44 Lola moves twig.
4:28pm Pale Male discovered on Stovepipe

4:30 Rain increases. Lola shifts another twig. She disappears and comes up with another beak full of soggy "dried" grass, stuffs it into higher position in nest.

4:43pm Jays have been scolding. Now there are four converging and scolding near the Bench.

4:44pm Pale Male sighted above Stovepipe, he circles, heads south, circles over Model Boat Pond, he's holding a twig, lands on the nest, Lola is off.

4:46pm Lola lands on the top railing of Stovepipe. (Yes, there's the railing but no Lola. Hey for a newbie, Ludi is doing pretty well.) She repeatedly looks down and left, then drops down one level to the railing in front of the door. The top of which can be seen near the bottom of the above photo. She looks down and left several more times from that position.4:50pm Lola drops down and further left to the third level down, and disappears behind what looks like a terrace wall. Food stash? In the meantime Pale Male has placed his twig and with active purpose pulls small branch size pieces of the nest out and wedges them in other spots. He shoves and tugs working furiously.

5:02pm Lola returns and quite as lightening Pale Male is off the nest.
5:06pm Lola, head in bowl, tail in air, does something for a few moments within the nest bowl.

5:19pm Lola peeks over the top of the twigs.

6pm Lola no longer visible.

The First Wisconsin Cedar Waxwings of the Season

(And it's 60F besides!)

Driving to the grocery store here in Milton, I looked up over a wooded area backing a subdivision and there were two Red-tails being attacked by a Peregrine. The falcon was managing to keep above them even though it was double teamed. Unlike the urban Red-tails who almost always have the use of an updraft to help them with altitude these two hawks were having to flap furiously while circling to try and get some height. The Peregrine took another swoop and suddenly they were all obscured by trees as I was the one loosing altitude, as I was forced to go downhill by the flow of traffic. I turned off in their direction, looked, but not a raptor in sight. So it was back to errands but on my way home, I went another way just checking to see if there was a nest in that stand of woods. Still no raptors but in a little berry bearing ornamental there were 14 Cedar Waxwings gorging themselves. The first I'd seen this year migrating through. Did I have the camera? No I did not. So it was a race to the house to get the camera, good thing Milton isn't very big, and get back before either the sun went down or the birds got full. When I returned most had dispersed but a few beauties were still having a late supper.
Donegal Browne