Thursday, April 26th - Urban Hawks

I ended up being the only regular at the fly out on Thursday. It was
cloudy, with a few rain drops, and turned colder as it got darker. A
birder on a bike, stopped by and go to see his first Eastern
Screech-Owl.

All three were together. The fledgling is in the lower right. As the wind blew, the willow leaves would sway, and you could get better looks at them.

Trident, who I think is the mother is on the upper left, with the fledgling below. Herringbone is behind, just visible on the lower left.

It was cold, so they were fluffed out. It gave them a cat like appearance I haven’t seen before.

I couldn’t capture pictures of the behavior, but soon after this picture was taken the fledgling “caught” a sweet gum seed pod, and flew and played with it just like a Red-tailed hawk fledgling would play with a stick. It was fun to watch.

The parents soon joined the fledgling, and did some warm up flying between trees. They ended up in a tree with leaf cover and I lost them.

Today, marked one full month of study. Soon, we’ll be unable to keep track of them as the leaf cover will be too thick. It’s been fun watching them.