The last 5th Avenue fledgling finally got its act together and left the nest Tuesday morning. It appears to spent the day in a few trees near where it first landed. I continue to be amazed by differences in personalities in Red-tailed Hawk fledgings. They range from fearless and confident to shy and uncertain.
They remaining eyass on the Fifth Avenue still hasn’t fledged yet. Its siblings fledged last Wednesday. The longest I’ve seen between sibling fledges is seven days. We’ll see what happens!
I spend a great deal of time on Friday, Saturday and Sunday hoping to see the last fledgling leave the nest. Given that its older siblings left last Wednesday, I was expecting it to go. But it certainly seem to be in no rush to go!
It’s two siblings are doing great in the park and are being well fed by Pale Male and Octavia.
I learned today that two, not just one hawk had fledged at Fifth Avenue on Wednesday. One of the two birds was flying all over the place, as though it had fledged weeks ago. The other was a bit more reserved hanging out in trees north of the Model Boat Pond building.
Three nests had fledges today, Fifth Avenue, St. John the Divine and Washington Square. For Washington Square it was the second fledge.
This evening, I got to see the first and second Washington Square Park fledglings. The first fledgling had made it to the safety of the NYU Pless Hall roof. The second and newest fledgling was doing its best to hide in a small tree west of the Bocce Court.
Both fledglings looked healthy. (You know you’ve watching hawks to long when you study video for signs of Frounce.) The second fledgling seemed to be having some trouble getting to higher branches, but that’s not too unusual for a hawk’s first day off the nest.
At Fifth Avenue, the hawk watchers are asking what happens at every nest, when will the eyasses (young hawks on the nest) fledge (fly off the nest). To answer this question requires some basic science, some behavioral science and lots of luck.
The basic science is that we know that generaly hawks fledge after 42-46 days. For some reason this can be longer for city nests, say 45-50 days. We’re not sure why we have this variation. It could be that we can count hatches more accurately in the city or that building nests without the opportunity for branching activity by the eyasses prolong the period. Hawks also need to be physically mature to fledge. So hawk watchers look at feather growth but more importanly tail length to judge if a hawk is ready to go.
On the behavioral side, we look for lots of jump-flapping and movement around the nest. We also look at the temperment of the hawks. Like college age childern, some look like they are eager to move on and others look like they won’t move out at all.
But in general, seeing a flege is about good luck and putting in the time to be in the right place at the right time.
