Sunday, January 31, 2010

FLASH!! ONE OF THE DIVINES, NORMAN OR ISOLDE, IS TWIGGING THE FIRE ESCAPE!

From Nara, who's fire escape has been an intermittent roost for Isolde over the past few weeks, with mate Norman somewhere in attendance on the same building--

Last night they didn't come back (so much for my theory about the cold). But as I was standing in the window talking on the phone five minutes ago (2:10 pm), I spotted one RTH in a tree right across from us. That one took off south and then I noticed another one (could have been the same one that I'd lost sight of) on a tree north of the original one. And that one suddenly swooped towards me, landing right in front of the window with A STICK!!! S/he plopped down from the railing onto the floor of the escape with a clunk.


I think s/he is there now--but I can't see as s/he is bit over from the window and I obviously don't want to open it to look...


OK, I'm going back to lurk in the living room.


Nara,
Your escape is in the running. They're twigging! It might only be the give-Isolde-a-choice nest but then again as we've no idea where they might have nested last season, if they did at all, we do know they did not use their previous site behind St. Andrew's arm at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. Therefore the situation my be in flux enough for your escape to be the primary nest. I've been wondering if the new building south of the Cathedral nest might have aced some important point in their mysterious personal set of nest positioning criteria which has made that nest site less attractive in some way.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

Also don't totally discount cold as a factor in Isolde spending the night on the escape. The answer may be a combination of wind direction and temperature. I'm beginning to believe that rarely do hawks change their behavior in response to one factor alone. It seems to be that often several factors are in play before a tipping point is reached.

Donegal Browne




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