Fledglings relax around the park, Bobby’s brief fly-by – July 14th, 2018

I managed to spend four hours with the Washington Square Park Red-tailed Hawks today. You would think that in all that time there’d be loads of action but no, I caught the Hawks during an extended relaxation session! The fledglings were content to preen and perch. We saw Bobby briefly as he soared over the park.

The first fledgling was in the western trees. It had a full crop and had fresh blood on its talons:

A second fledgling flew from south to north over the park:

It landed on One Fifth Avenue scaffolding where it rested for the next 40 minutes:

I found a spot where I could watch both fledglings at the same time:

Unfortunately the One Fifth Avenue fledgling flew off its perch without our seeing where it went.

Deep leg stretch:

A Blue Jay approached and harassed the fledgling for a few minutes:

The little Hawk hopped from branch to branch before flying further west in the trees:

The Blue Jay followed it and continued to harass it.

Looking up at its tormentor:

The fledgling settled down in a shady crook of a tree so a fellow Hawk-watcher and I started to walk south to see if we could find the third fledgling there.

I had turned around to tell my friend something when I noticed a Hawk soaring by One Fifth!

It turned out to be Bobby. He glided straight over the park, flew over the side street we were walking on, then continued southward and out of sight:

We couldn’t find Bobby and weren’t finding the other fledgling so we returned to the trees where we last saw a fledgling.

A fledgling was in a tree near where we had left the first bird. We thought we might be with the third fledgling but I’m not so sure now. Although the chest markings appeared different from the first fledgling we saw, it’s possible the feathers ‘shifted’ enough to look like a different bird but was really the same one.

When this fledgling flew through the trees later in my visit its markings settled into place to look like those of the first fledgling. It can be tricky telling them apart! At least the first Hawk baby to have fledged this season has unique enough markings to tell it apart from the others.

In either case, we enjoyed watching this fledgling relax in its tree. It sat on a branch above a squirrel who was keeping very still and lying very flat:

The fledgling ignored the squirrel and hopscotched to a couple of new trees:

New squirrels came to investigate it before retreating:

The fledgling found a new tree to sit in for the next hour:

It then dove at a bird in mid-air but missed. It continued on to a couple of new trees:

It settled down yet again. I really had to go now so I tore myself away.

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Another Hawk-watcher told me later in the day that two fledglings were sitting together on the Two Fifth Avenue heat vent, just as they had yesterday so that was fun to hear.