Fifth Avenue, Astoria, Briarwood and Fordham Updates! Plus John Blakeman on Late Hatching Third Eyasses

Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/
 Two of the eyasses on the Fifth Avenue nest of Pale Male and Octavia 

 From Jules Corkery of the Astoria nest  of Atlas and Andromeda-
 Saw a little fuzzy tippy top of someone's head as Andromeda reached down w food yesterday !

 From Jeff Kollbrunner of the Briarwood nest--
Yesterday a visit to the Briarwood nest yielded a surprise, a third Eyass!! The little one must have been seeking warmth under Mama on all the prior visits to the nest. The Eyasses are now 14-15 days of age.

I have posted new photos of the Eyasses, Mama and Papa on my Facebook page, JKNatureGallery.

Best to all !
Jeff

THERE'S A HATCH!  From Chris Lyons, chief watcher of Fordham Vince and his New Girl--

Based on yesterday's observations, I'd say there's probably three hatchlings, still in the floppy stage.   They are maybe slightly behind the normal timetable, but not by much, so Vince must have found a new mate very quickly, if Rose did indeed perish at the time we think she did. 

I've got a friend who works in real estate in Manhattan, and she's going to try and track down the building management for me.  If all else fails, I'll just go around to the back of the building and look for the super.   

Saturday, May 4, from Rob Schmunk-
 http://morningsidehawks.blogspot.com/
A quick overview of the red-tail nests north of 110th St in Manhattan (Island).

Inwood - I've seen several reports of feeding behavior at the new
nest. I don't know when the hatch was but it may have been as much as
two weeks ago.

Highbridge Park - The hawks abandoned the new nest a couple weeks after the female had already started brooding and moved to an even newer nest close to last year's site. Given the uncertainty on when the switch was made, hatch could be anytime in the next two weeks.

Washington Heights - From the look of things today, I think a hatch has occurred in the last couple days.

CCNY - James reported seeing feeding behavior this past week.

Cathedral of St. John. - Feeding behavior first observed Sunday two weeks ago. Given the nest location it's likely to be another weekbefore anyone spots a nestling and possibly three weeks before we're sure how many there are.

Other uptown sites that I do not know the status of are Randalls Island, the new CPW nest, and whatever is going on at RIverside in the 80s.

And last but not least, the third eyass at the Franklin Institute was hatched three days later than the second and therefore is a bit of a Tail End Charlie, being decidedly smaller than the other two.  John Blakeman explains....
 http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

HAPPY HAWKING!!!
Donegal Browne

Octavia and the "kids", Prescribed Prairie Burns, and Vince of Fordham, his New Girl, and the Bad Choice Location

 

 photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/

 Octavia feeds the eyasses on Pale Male's Fifth Avenue nest.

From Chris Lyons, major watcher of the Fordham Hawks currently nesting on Webster Avenue-

Just saw one of those little white blobby things with a black spot in the center--from quite a good distance away, through binoculars, on the top floor of the building I work in, but I've been doing this a while now.  Popped up, looked around, settled back down again.  The female is sitting at the edge of the nest, looking down,  seemingly quite pleased with herself.  She is mercifully spared anticipation of the difficulties yet to come.

So normally joyous news, but now our preferential option--no hatch, and our new queen decides this nest site sucks, and goes somewhere better next time (like back to the campus) has failed to come about.  So we're stuck with option 2--search and rescue.  We don't even know the apartment number belonging to that window yet.  That's where the search part comes in.

Like I just told Bobby, I'm even concerned about the PRE-fledging stage, since you know that as they get close to taking off for the first time, they like to get athletic, and move around, from branch to branch, or ledge to ledge, and that's really not a good idea in this case.  I hope that rather narrow metal structure is going to be enough space for their pre-flight workouts. 

I've got a potential contact number for the building management--may be a false lead, but I'll pursue it.  They have got to know what's going on.   More as the story develops.

Fingers crossed Chris, keep us posted!

Sorry about the lag in posts, for the last seven days I've been doing prescribed burns of prairies and wetlands. It has been a trip.  

And nearly every burn had a Red-tailed Hawk nest on the periphery.  These areas were Red-tail hunting ground which included a copse of trees for a nest and hunting perches with a prairie spread out before it


The latest was a prescribed burn of 125 acres of wetland prairie. One doesn't want to burn down anything accidentally of course but this particular wetland had a four million dollar house in the middle of it.  

Photographs of rural Red-tailed Hawk nests and  aforementioned burns will have to wait as the photo transfer function of blogger is down.  Sigh.

And lest I forget, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair who stopped in for a bite at the feeder. 
 

From Robin of Illinois by way of Jackie of Tulsa--

 A BEAVER CAM!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ellis-bird-farm-far-beaver-lodge

It's inside the lodge, and a beaver has been on and off the screen.

MUCH MORE TO COME, PARTICULARLY WHEN THE PHOTO FUNCTION IS BACK UP!

Donegal Browne

FLASH!! IT LOOKS LIKE AT LEAST TWO EYASSES, FOR PALE MALE AND OCTAVIA!

 Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/
Word just in from longtime blog contributor and hawkwatcher Stella Hamilton (Who took a week of vacation so she'd be onsite for a hatch.) has another report for today!

7:47PM  Pale Male arrives on the the Fifth Avenue nest without prey.  He and Octavia look at each other. Pale Male and Octavia look into  the nest bowl. 

 Octavia pulls out a portion of squirrel from the right side of the nest and eats for about three minutes. 

Octavia then starts ripping off small bits and feeding into the right side of the bowl for several minutes.  She then picks up the squirrel carcass and moves to the left side of the bowl and feeds there as well.   

Therefore an educated guess, brings us to the hypothesis  that  there are two eyasses so far this season for the Monarch of Central Park and his Consort.

Scroll down for the first flash of the day if you've not seen it yet!

Donegal Browne