Fledglings together, Bobby on duty – June 26th, 2018

The three Washington Square Park Red-tailed Hawk fledglings were keeping close together as recently as last night. At one point a fellow Hawk-watcher spotted them on perching together on the roof of NYU’s Shimkin building (the taller building next door to the nest location).

I did not have as much luck during my visit today but I did get to see one of the fledglings.

The first Hawk I saw was one of the adults sitting on a regular flag pole. It flew north over the street then disappeared:

I circled the blocks where I last saw the fledglings two days ago and found one of them sitting just east of the park 15 minutes after I had arrived:

Post-preen puffiness:

I got distracted by the sound of a fledgling crying in the trees near me so I left the one fledgling to search for the other. The cries continued but sounded disjointed so it was all a little confusing.

I was zeroing in on the source of the sound when all of a sudden I realized that a Blue Jay was mimicking the call the whole time. The Jay was hopping from branch to branch, stopping now and then to eat morsels in the tree. It had the bits all to itself thanks to its clever sounds scaring competition away.

It was not the first time I was tricked by a Jay. I got sidetracked by one doing the same mimicry one day back in 2013.

I returned to the real fledgling I had seen and thankfully it was still on its perch:

It flew further east 17 minutes after I had first discovered it. I spent the next hour and 15 minutes circling the eastern blocks trying to find the fledglings but they were nowhere in sight. I was there at the cusp of nap time so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all lying down tucked in and tuckered out.

Bobby was on One Fifth so I walked closer to him to see what he might do:

It was after I got home and was looking through my pictures when I noticed a smaller bird had been perched above our majestic bird of prey. The bird appeared sizeable and had a lot of red it its plumage but I’m not sure what species it was.

Bobby scanning his territory:

All was quiet so I went searching for the fledglings again.

One of the adults appeared, caught a thermal, and spent a minute hovering over the building I had seen the youngsters on a couple of days ago:

I determined later by its coloring that it was Bobby. He moved on and slowly flew over Broadway and further northeast to the Cooper Square/Astor Place area:

I had to go for the day. I hope to find all three fledglings the next time I visit!