Pouring rain all afternoon and night yesterday hindered my ability to visit the Washington Square Park Red-tailed Hawk family. The skies were clear when I left work today so I headed to the park to see how the Hawks were faring.
Both fledglings were palling around together in “Quantico”. They were hopping and flapping and flying about as well as play-killing branches that were on the ground.
The first fledgling I saw (or F1):
I was photographing them through a tall chain link fence so the quality of my photos suffered a little bit.
F1 made a dash in my direction, running over the ground:
Her sister playfully swooped past during a close fly-by…
… and landed on a nearby pine tree:
Landing on and kicking/attacking a fallen branch with might:
She flew in the direction of her sibling:
She scared up some pigeons and a squirrel during her flight. She even chased the squirrel a little but continued flying instead of trying to attack it:
“F1” on the higher perch:
F1 then flew to a tree to relax and preen:
Scrunch and spring:
She seemed pretty full so she preened and relaxed on her perch for at least forty minutes.
“F2” stayed on her pine tree perch:
A squirrel charged at her from below so she had to resort to some fancy footing to avoid its attacks:
She eventually nestled down again.
The fledglings didn’t seem like they’d leave any time soon so I went looking for Bobby and Rosie. I missed seeing them before I went home for dinner but found out they both appeared about ten or fifteen minutes after I left the park.