Tonight the feeding didn’t take place until 8:15!  Just as it was getting dark.  The mother looked to be feeding two positions, which is a good sign for a healthy nest.

It was great to finally see very brief glimpse of an eyass at St. John.  This weekend, the city should be a fun place to hawk watch.  So many nests, so little time.

Both Robert and James have had reports on their blogs about signs of the St. John the Divine nest hatching, earlier this week.  Once I hear a report like this of a nest hatching, I have to travel to see what’s up.

The nest is behind the shoulder’s of St. Andrew and is very deep.  Every year it seems to get deeper, too.  This makes it hard to see the young eyasses.  We can see the feeding, and we can see the slices (poops), but we can’t see the young birds.  On Saturday, I positively knew they had hatched but couldn’t see them.  Once they get bigger, we’ll be able to see them and count how many there are.  But not now…

The bare spot on the mother’s chest is her brood patch.  You almost never see it, but the wind was “just right”.

I finally got a chance to visit St. John the Divine on Sunday.  The St. John the Divine Red-tailed Hawk pair go into stealth mode when they nest.  The nest allows either parent to completely hide on the nest and the the parent who is off the nest usually stays hidden before the eggs hatch.

I spent an hour and half at the nest and only got to see the parents for about a half minute during an exchange.

The evening at the Cathedral started with the adult male up on the eastern side of the building.  He was in an area that protected him against the attacks of a pair of American Kestrels.  Eventually, he took off towards Manhattan Avenue and 110th with an American Kestrel in tow.

I went on a walk through Morningside Park to find the fledgling expecting to find it in a tree.  However, I took a look back at the Cathedral just in case from the ballfields, and much to my surprise, I saw the fledgling sitting on the nest! 

It was eating.  I guess the nest must be a safe place to eat with the two Kestrels being so aggressive.  After eating the fledgling then made a number of stops, being harassed by either Kestrels, Robins or Jays the whole time.  The stops included trees in Morningside Park, trees on Morningside Drive, the Cathedral School, and eventually somewhere in the Cathedral grounds.

The fledgling at St. John flew from a St. Luke’s rooftop, over to the top of a large arch on the Cathedral.  It then went to a high platform before landing on a few of the finials.  It eventually landed inside a section of a fancy section of a finial.  This seems to solve a mystery of a few nights ago, where the fledgling seemed to disappear into thin air.