Astoria Fledgling Vs. The Blue Jays

By D. Bruce YoltonOther Red-tailed Hawks

I arrived to a quiet afternoon in Astoria.  One of the parents was on the bridge and the eyas still on the nest was making practice jumps around the nest and up to a bracket on the bridge.

The quiet was short lived however.  The fledgling appeared in a tree south of the tennis courts.  It was immediately mobbed by two noisy Blue Jays.
They kept attacking and dive bombing.
The fledgling lost its grip and slid down the branch.
It ended up in a smaller tree.
The Blue Jays kept at it.

At some point the fledgling had enough and flew south to a residential block of Astoria.  I walked around the block looking for it, but couldn’t find it.  I think it was on a flat roof that wasn’t visible from the street.  With the excitement over, I returned to Manhattan.