Tonight, I managed to make it to the nest just before dusk to find two very active youngsters. They both were moving all around, mostly outside the nest and by the end of the evening both fell asleep on perches outside the nest!
Their parents slept nearby in trees a few hundred feet south.
These kids are ready to go. I suspect one will be in a different tree the next time I see them.
Between breaks in the rain, I was able to watch the eyasses for about an hour and a half around noon on Sunday. A young squirrel tried got close to the nest upsetting on of the eyasses, the adult male delivered a rat which one of them ate, and there was lots of branching. They are now spending most of their time on branches outside the nest.
Both eyasses are doing more and more branching. A few days ago, the oldest hadn’t figured out how to turn around on a branch and would hop backwards back into the nest. Now they can both branch fairly well, and both can turn around on a branch.
Branching has advanced with the two hawks going further away from the nest. The older one can finally turn around on a limb, rather than get back to the nest by jumping backwards!
The parents are feeding them lots of food. Their crops look like they’ve swallowed a peach! They’re being so spoiled, the talk around the nest is “Why would they ever want to leave the nest?”.
The eyasses are both looking ready to fledge. Until they do, they’re putting on a nice show, jumping and branching around the nest. If you haven’t been down to the nest or haven’t been down lately, now is the time to make a visit.
In some of the pictures and in parts of the video, you’ll see one of the eyasses take too big a piece of food. It is left with a wing feather stuck partially swallowed. It took about 10 minutes for it to get it all the way down.
The eyasses continue their exploring of the branches around the nest. They’re getting awfully close to fledging!
