Pale Male and Octavia's Pin Feathered Little Guy, and Quicksilver the African Grey Parrot Chews His Way Into a Drawer

Photo courtesy of palemale.com
One of Pale Male and Octavia's eyasses works on a pin feather.  Actually all the new feathers eyasses go through in babyhood rather drive them mad.  If you've not done it, watch a hawkcam a night when the eyasses fledgling feathers are coming in.  They sometimes spend the whole night trying to deal with the pin feathers. 

I'd been told that hawk parents did not preen their young and I admit I've not seen them do it in the daytime, but I have seen them doing it many times at night on cams.  In some cases if an eyasses sleep becomes too disturbed by them Mom will work on particularly bothersome ones.

I thought that things might be calming down, at least Silver hadn't bombed me lately, but no, when I came in to check on him he was hanging off the cupboard door in front of his currently chosen shelf...excuse me, cavity.

Then he flipped round and I got ready to duck. 

Instead he flew over to his old stand by the clean laundry.  (I was actually able to catch up a little on  the laundry while he was sleeping last night.  Woooo Hoooo!)

Considering Silver's expression I decided not to push my luck and retreated to a safer room.

 1:41 pm  He turns his head and gives me a look.  I tense.

And though Silver keeps one eye on me he turns back enough to keep the other eye on the bird feeder.

It is a gray chilly day, but there are some signs of Spring.  The Goldfinch are sporting their Spring colors...

...and a lactating squirrel is about to leap the baffle and raid the sunflower seed feeder.  (Hey, she needs the calories.)

And as all seems well, I head back to my chores.  

I'm typing away when I realize I've been hearing a sort of wood grinding noise for awhile.  What is that?  It stops.

Click, clakity, click...geeerrrrrind

That's it!  What IS that sound?

My first choice as to where to look for mysterious sounds...the laundry room of course.  I go in.  Look around.  No parrot.  No more grinding wood either.

"Silver.   Silver?"  

Where is he?

I look behind things.  I look under things.

No parrot.  Right.  

Wonder if he is back excavating under the chest of drawers?  I'm in the process of getting down to look under it when...

Is there an eye looking at me from that drawer?  I change angles.

Not only is there an eye, I'd say there is a parrot head  and likely the rest of him.  He looks a little squashed and he didn't get in from this side.  Did he really chew his way in from underneath?  I gently pull it a touch more open.

Looks like he could use it a touch more open.  Another gentle pull.

Lookin'  kinda grumpy  there, Silver.   Actually he looks rather like the F word might be forthcoming.  Parrots are experts at picking up swear words...anything with high expletive drama will be copied.  It is in their nature.

Ah he seems to be accompanied by some wood splinters.  What a surprise.  One in his feathers...two visible in the drawer...  Will have to check that out when his hormones have settled down.  I don't think moving furniture is in the cards right now.

Still lookin' grumpy?  No perhaps stunned is a better word for that expression.  Hon'  you did do it to yourself.  Not fun squashing yourself into a full drawer from the back or the bottom?

 Sorry.  I know.  Nobody likes to be mocked at a time like this.

Do you want to go in the other room?  

He steps up so I figure that's a yes.

 Squirrel is already in residence but they often sit here companionably together. It is the best seat in the house for the southern exposure bird feeder.  Though currently Squirrel is considering leaping on Pyewacket, the (other) cat. 

 Eventually Squirrel sleeps and Silver is content enough to stay put.

Thank goodness.

And tomorrow, more hawk news plus what do female African Grey Parrots act like at this time of year!

Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne

IS OCTAVIA SETTLING INTO THE FIFTH AVENUE NEST AND CATS CAN BE JERKS

 
 Photo courtesy of http://wwwpalemale.com/
Pale Male with a meal for Octavia 

Long time Hawkwatcher Katherine Herzog, the uptown Fifth Avenue half of our recent spotting team in Central Park, shares her observations from the Hawk Bench for March 6th

 Hi Donna,

2:20pm - Spent only an hour at the Fifth Avenue nest but when I got to the boat pond (meeting up with other hawk watchers)....Octavia and Pale Male were both on the nest. Pale came and went several times but Octavia sat on the nest and then settled down into the deepest part of the nest disappearing completely from time to time and then poking her head up.  Then Pale Male flew back to the nest and he "tried out" the deepest part of the nest, sinking down until he disappeared completely as Octavia watched from the rim of the nest.

Total time I observed Octavia continuously on the nest was 45-minutes, but she was already on the nest when I got to the park.

Pale Male flew off north and though I didn't observe any feeding on the nest - when Octavia finally flew off south we noticed a very full crop.  We left at 3:30pm after being slammed by extremely strong winds.  And remember - this was just my hour's worth of observation!

Lincoln's picture posted on www.palemale.com of Pale bringing more food to the nest late in the afternoon was great to see.  This is the most quality time I've seen them spend at the nest thus far and that's just (from my part) only occasional and intermittent observations.

Katherine
 

 Many thanks for being our eyes in the field,  Katherine!

And for something completely different, in from Robin of Illinois, check out CATS CAN BE JERKS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/cats-can-be-jerks-compilation-video_n_2828781.html?utm_hp_ref=good-news&ir=Good%20News

Donegal Browne
Happy Hawking!

Pale Male and Zena's Fledgling Assisted by Lincoln Karim, Doorstep Dove and Friends New Youngsters, Plus Isolde and Norman's Fledglings in Morningside Park

                    Photo by Jeffrey Johnson
Jeffrey Johnson, a contributor to the blog whom I met at the Wild New York City Symposium has a piece on author and original Pale Male watcher Marie Winn's Website about Lincoln and one of the Fifth Avenue fledglings.

http://mariewinnnaturenews.blogspot.com/

 
Doorstep Dove and Friend as I reported earlier have fledged three youngsters in this clutch.  Not extremely rare for Mourning Doves to lay three eggs but two eggs per clutch is the far more common number.

Here are photos of the two more mature fledglings.  The third who came off the nest slightly less mature is spending more time hiding in cover then flying except when she absolutely has to.  The other two tend to perch in sight, so we'll wait for a photo of number 3.

When I accidentally  flushed two of  Doorstep's Trio out of the garden, One took off toward the old TV antenna.

Two lifted off from the garden and came down on the short log wall that borders the yard's boundary from the park, about 12 feet away from me.  She looked at me and I at her.  She then bobbed her head at me and I bobbed back. We went back and forth  much as her mother had originally done as a first year bird though she was older as it was winter and she snuggled up to my patio door when it was cold.

  How old is Doorstep now?  I do believe we've been bobbing at each other for six years now.   

Perhaps this little dove will continue the tradition.

Photo by Rob Schmunk

And what about Isolde and Stormin' Norman's fledglings up at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine? 

 Needless to say, young Red-tails aren't the least bit popular with their bird neighbors, ever.  In  fact bird's scolding is a common way for watchers to find raptor fledglings but somehow the bird neighbors in Morningside Park have always seemed the loudest and most raucous when it comes to giving young Red-tails a piece of their mind   Check out Rob Schmunk's blog--

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

 

Happy Hawking

Donegal Browne