I came
downstairs as I do every morning; turned out our front light as I do every
morning; opened the front and storm doors to feel the weather as I do every
morning; and looked up at the hawk nest as I’ve done every morning for the past
month and a half – expecting nothing and instead saw the slow, deliberate
movement of a large, hook-beaked head.
Mars was
following me. “Come out here and look at
the nest!” She did, and not surprisingly
saw the same thing.
Because of the
viewing angles, etc., we have never had a good vantage point into the
aerie. Now leaves have appeared on the trees
so even that minimal window is rapidly shrinking.
I wondered, “What is going on?”
Ninety minutes after as we headed out to the health club, with the aforementioned skull still
in sight, the second raptor glided onto the perch next to the aerie. We hung around for a few minutes. So did he.
(I’m assuming that the peripatetic predator is a he – it is smaller (as
“he” would be) and not tied to the nest (as most write-ups I’ve seen say “she”
would be.))
Later, after
we had returned from working out and were on our way to some volunteering at
our historical society, he landed again, – this time with something small (and
presumably edible) dangling from its bill.
Soon he left without it.
What is going
on?
Just the day
before we were commenting to our across the street neighbor D – who until the
trees began leafing had a perfect line of sight through her binoculars into the
aerie – that we hadn’t any hawk action for several days. Neither had she. We all were beginning to give up hope. Now it was clear to Mars and me that some
thing was happening – we just don’t know what.
Remembering
that frequently the answers you get depend upon the questions you ask I queried
of the all-wise Google “how long before hawks leave the nest?”
The online
Wisconsin State Journal had a May 2012 news column titled with basically the
same question. "About 45 days is
all it takes for them to fledge — to leave the nest for good,"
At the time the
newspaper was reporting the goings-on of a hawk couple in Madison WI that they were following via hawk-cam. They said that those chicks
broke out of their eggs April 19, and thus had a projected June 3 departure date.
“But watch
for plenty of action before that.
"’They
grow very rapidly, which is why you see the parents spending so much time
off-nest even now, just a couple weeks after they hatched,’ Berres said. ‘It's
like feeding a gang of growing teenagers, and it's all the parents can do to
keep up with the hunting required to meet the chicks' physiological needs.’"
Unfortunately
that camera was taken down in June of last year and the website says that the
hawks did not return in 2013.
Now I am even
more curious as to what is going on in our own hatchery.
I searched
further into the world of intrusive wildlife webcasts and found a New York
Times live coverage of a red-tailed hawk nest in Washington Square Park. The last posting on the site, dated 3/20/13,
said, “The stars of the reality raptor drama, believed to be last year’s
couple, Rosie and Bobby, are currently warming three eggs on a nest situated on
the 12th-floor window ledge of New York University’s president, John Sexton.”
During my
brief viewing time I saw three gangly balls of brown feathers toddling
cautiously around the pile of twigs – and a full-sized hawk (Rosie?) basically
trying to stay out of their way.
Presumably, if I had watched long enough, Bobby would also appear in the
frame bearing nourishment for the home-bound brood.
Mars has named
our duo after the actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. And probably life in Uma and Ethan's aerie is mimicking
that of Rosie, Bobby, and family.
So that’s
what’s going on at the moment – though invisible to us.
However, now
there is a larger and much more troubling question.
I just
learned that real-life Uma and Ethan’s seven-year marriage ended amid rumors of
his affair with the couple's nanny whom he later married.
Some guy
left Uma Thurman!! What is going on?
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