Two little birds doing their best Bobby and Violet impersonation on one of the hawks’ favorite perches:
A hawk flew over my seating area around 5:15 tonight heading West. What a welcome sight! I followed its path and was lucky to spot it on top of a corner building:
Violet!
Within a few minutes, Bobby swooped by and into the area of the park referred to as the “hunting grounds” or “Quantico” (so affectionately named since it was where Bobby trained Pip how to hunt):
After not finding food in the hunting grounds, he flew to a section of the park further North:
A young lady unwittingly walked under the tree Bobby was perched on and took a seat to read (Bobby is seen near the top of the photo):
Balled foot:
After scanning for prey, Bobby descended into a nearby bush to fetch dinner (still unnoticed by the reading lady):
No luck catching anything this time around:
Hawk angel:
After another scan, he caught his prize:
Violet flew into the park and landed in a tree near Bobby. It was hard to tell exactly what was going on but it appeared that Bobby passed the freshly-caught kill to her by leaving it in a tree. There was much criss-crossing of hawks in the air and I lost track of who was who. They vocalized to each other and seemed to follow or chase the other from tree to tree.
Hawk with prey:
Violet eventually revealed her identity when landing tentatively on a nearby building overlooking the park:
Violet flew from the building top to a bracket anchoring a pipe to the side of a nearby building. Bobby soon appeared and flew to the side of the building across the street from her:
The perch was precarious so he quickly flew toward her perch:
Although you only see Bobby in the photo below, Violet is seated next to him, closer to the pipe:
Violet’s shape becomes more obvious beside Bobby’s:
As I watched, the two hawks moved closer together, forming one dark shape against the night sky. I assume they were tucked in for the night since, despite the bright city lighting in the photos, the sky was quite dark.
A view of their pipe perch from a different angle:
