I spent about an hour at the Wild West Playground nest late in the morning on Wednesday. The male was sitting on the nest when I arrived. I wasn’t sure it was the male, but when the female returned to tree about 100 yards north of the nest he flew over and they copulated. Than made it easy to tell who was who. After a few minutes the female flew to the nest.

When hawks start to nest it can be hard to know if they’ve laid eggs yet. A female can start sitting on the nest a few days before she starts laying eggs and the eggs are laid a few days apart. Figuring out the start date is hard. And early March seems a bit earlier than normal.

I would love to see the female roll her eggs to get a better sense of how far things are along. But this is part of the fun of watching a nest, you just have to make observations and do your best to make the right guess.