Pale Male Isn't the Only Red-tail Dad Who's Slow Off the Nest- Franklin Mom Does a Lola, Riverside Dad Missing

Photograph courtesy of palemale.com
Pale Male vacates the nest bowl while Ginger Lima takes his place entering from the other side of the nest.

Photograph courtesy of http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

The Franklin Institute Red-tailed hawks in Philadelphia are the proud parents of 3 eyasses. And Franklin Dad, very much like Pale Male, is very devoted to his offspring and rather likes sitting the nest. Also like Pale Male, when Franklin Mom reappears, Franklin Dad doesn't hop right up. Oh no, in fact he rather, um well, ignores her, dum de dum, as if she weren't standing right over his shoulder staring or walking around on the edge of the nest waiting for him to vacate the premises.

As staring and pacing failed to get a rise out of Dad, Franklin Mom gave him a bit of a gentle headbutt, then paced some more. Dad looked up but still didn't HOP up. So next, I'm told there was a possible poke, while she moved around the edge of the nest. This eventually got him to rise. At which time she inspected the contents of the nest. Evidently finding all to her satisfaction she then settled in on top of the 3 wee white eyasses.

There were occasions when not only did Lola give Pale Male a bump, she followed it up with a beak poke and then, I'm assuming, not seeing enough action, it looked like she may have given Pale a pinch. He did hop right up on whatever the escalated action was, at any rate.

Without question the formel is the boss of the nest and some people believe she is rather the boss of the pair when it comes down to it. That may be part of the reason that the formel is larger than the tiercel is.

As to other Red-tailed Hawk Nests-

Rob Schmunk of http://bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com/
reports that though it might well be time for a hatch up at the nest behind St. Andrew at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, no feeding behavior has yet been seen.

And I received an email from Amy Devon, a watcher of the Riverside Nest--possible bad news. No one has reported seeing the male of the pair in several days. The is particularly scary as there are any number of rat bait stations in the area even though watchers have done their best to get them removed, they remain. This was the pair that lost their first clutch of eyasses to poison.

I don't have official word on this but I was told that the nearby restaurant is the entity placing the rat poison. Does anyone know for sure?

There has been some talk of a boycott of the restaurant, with flyers being distributed to explain it's origin but if the restaurant isn't the perpetrator that could be a misplaced action, though poor garbage sanitation by restaurants is regularly the impetuous for rat infestations in NYC Parks.