So What's With Isolde?

SO WHAT IS WITH ISOLDE?

6:36pm Isolde sits on rail atop 110.

6:49pm Isolde is perched on the far east finial.

6:51pm For over an hour, according to report, no adult has gone to the nest.

6:59pm Tristan sits in his trademark stance, one foot up, on a pipe running along the side of the cathedral as he has done for the previous half hour, according to Rob Schmunk of http://bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com/

7:14pm Isolde sits on a finial. She looks quite under the weather and isn't preening as she normally would.

7:25pm Still no adult attends the nest. That's two hours now.

7:31pm Isolde flies off the finial and by 7:32 there is a mature RT on the SW chimney of St. Luke's Hospital.

7:33pm A hawk comes off the chimney and goes to the nest leaving the other mature Red-tail on the chimney. I'm surmising here, but I think that Tristan brought the pigeon to Isolde on the chimney. She didn't take it to the nest when she was presented with it so Tristan did. (A neighbor told a hawkwatcher that she'd seen a hawk take a pigeon around 7:30pm.)

7:34pm Tristan lands on the nest and begins to feed the eyasses.

7:35pm Tristan checks on Isolde then continues to feed.

Tristan gently feeds the eyasses.

7:42pm Tristan leans down, picks up the garbage, the remains of a pigeon, and flies off with it for disposal.

7:53pm Are they really leaving the nest unattended for this long this late?

8:05pm As you can see it's quite dark and Isolde is still on the chimney of The Plant Pavilion of St. Luke's Hospital. Is Tristan on the nest? He may well be as a hawk flew that direction but it was too dark to see clearly. It was thought at first to be Isolde going to the nest, but no.

8:25pm Isolde is still on St. Luke's. ???

Is Isolde sick or is she just suffering from the mother's lament, sick and tired, sick and tired of living in that bowl of a nest for weeks on end?

Many thanks for the observations of today's hawkwatchers, Rob Schmunk, Lincoln Karim, Bruce Yolten, and filmmaker Frederic Lilien.

Donegal Browne

(For the most recent posts, click on Palemaleirregulars at the top of the page.)