Briarwood Queens Has a Confirmed Hatch! Plus a Chris Lyons Update from Fordham

The evidence of the confirmed hatch, see that little white wing flopping up?

Jeff Kollbrunner had been relatively sure they had a hatch at Mama and Papa's nest and we discussed the cues he took to be important. One of which was the elevated position of Mama on the nest. I asked him for an email so all could share in the details--

Donna,
The postings I made regarding Mama sitting higher in the nest. started on 4/13, 14, 15, and by the 16th we were very confident we had hatches although no confirmed sighting at that point. All behaviors pointed to this conclusion. See the text at the below link. Also, based on today's observation the eyass we watched appeared to be about a week old in size and strength. We were probably watching the first born

http://www.jknaturegallery.com/rth_news_recent.html

I have attached an image from today's first sighting of the youngster in our nest. Look carefully, I put a red box around the eyass, it's looking to the left and flapping its tiny wings. The white spot to the right of the red box is not a baby.

All the best, Jeff

Photograph by Christopher Lyons
Hawkeye and Rose on the Fordham Nest

And a report from Chris Lyons who's been keeping a close eye on them--- When I got up on the roof of Dealy, Hawkeye was sitting on the nest. He fiddled a bit with this material that looked like grey laundry lint, which I assume was the nest lining. Half an hour later, Rose turned up, and they both looked down at the eggs, but I saw no indication any of them had hatched out.

Then Hawkeye flew off, Rose settled in, and I got down off the very windy roof. I'll keep checking all week. Since no feeding was seen until April 26th last year, we're still well within the window. But I now feel pretty confident she hadn't laid an egg by March 20th, even though she started sitting regularly by or before that date.

It sounds like Hawkeye and Rose are doing just fine and right on schedule!
Donegal Browne

(Below find another posting for today concerning a National Pigeon Day event coming up in Central Park on June 13th. Pale Male and Lola Update coming later this evening. D.B)