Fledglings get meals, expand their flight ranges – June 13th, 2019

A fellow Hawk-watcher let me know that he saw one of the fledglings on a rooftop at the corner of Mercer Street and Washington Place at 7:30AM this morning.

This fledgling sounded like F1 to me considering how well it has been exploring the east side building tops.

Hearing that the fledgling was on this particular rooftop was encouraging because that building is one of the Hawks’ regular feeding spots from previous years.

I could not see the fledgling when I visited today but I did hear it crying the typical “feed me” cry at times.

There was no action Hawk-wise for around half an hour until I saw a Hawk coming into a landing on NYU’s Silver Center.

It was the new male Hawk (and who’s recently been named Juno):

He dove off and flew alongside the building and quickly became obscured by the trees. I had a hunch he’d wind up on the opposite building corner and was pleased to see him there. I am beginning to learn his perches:

He dove down after a few minutes. He flew up and landed in one of the eastern trees. He may have been on a lawn shortly beforehand. He then circled by that building for a few turns before disappearing on me.

Someone had mostly buried the banded pigeon body I discovered a few days ago which I felt was thoughtful of them.

Another pigeon settled down for a quick rest not too from the dead one:

It was 48 minutes until I saw another Hawk. This time it was Sadie as she circled above the southeastern corner of the park a few times. She soon disappeared too.

All this time I had been looking for the F2, the fledgling who has been doing so great traveling through the trees the last few days but couldn’t find her.

I went back to Washington Place and Mercer to look for F1 on the corner building top.

I saw Juno on a taller building across the street:

He was looking right down at the roof where F1 would be:

Juno moved on and flew west. I then saw Sadie circling west of me and realized Juno had flown to her. They circled together in the sky before flying northeast.

I found them sitting together on a high terrace a couple of blocks away:

A pair of Mockingbirds dive-bombed the Hawks but the Hawks carried on preening:

Juno headed west, taking one of the Mockingbirds with him:

He then landed on top of the One Fifth Avenue apartment building:

He could easily see Sadie from his perch because all the other buildings between them were several floors lower:

Sadie circled over the building F1 was sitting on before she flew southwest.

I was walking along 3rd Street and Mercer when I heard several Robins making very angry, loud calls. I perked up because this is a sound they make when upset with a Hawk’s presence!

I followed the sounds to the corner of 3rd and Broadway and there was one of the fledglings sitting on a window sill!

A couple of men who work at NYU were there ahead of me, enjoying the fledgling. One of these guys is a very enthusiastic Hawk fan and it was funny to run into each other on this seemingly random corner.

The fledgling appeared relaxed. It looked up in the sky at one point but I didn’t see if it was looking at an adult Hawk or not.

The fledgling would preen, cry a little, then go back to preening.

A fellow Hawk-watcher told me she saw mama Hawk drop food off for the fledgling on the building I told you about earlier in this post so we went over in the hopes of seeing it eating. I was torn to leave the fledgling but glad that Bruce of Urban Hawks showed up a few minutes before we left so he could take over the fledgling-watching duties. 🙂

We still couldn’t see the fledgling on the roof from our vantage point but we did see random pigeon feathers float down from the building top. So it was either the fledgling or Juno eating the pigeon up there.

I’m taking a guess that it was the fledgling eating because we did see Juno circling near the fledgling’s roof top but I didn’t see him land up there. However I did see Juno fly away so I’m hoping the falling feathers were from the fledgling’s plucks. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful here. Regardless, we know Sadie has been delivering food to the fledgling(s).

A fellow Hawk-watcher told me he saw Sadie across the street from the fledgling’s building.

Sadie was sitting on the exact same perch cornice Juno had perched on an hour and a half earlier:

Not much else was happening so we returned to the fledgling that had been on the window sill.

It was still there but around the corner this time:

I heard later on that Sadie brought a pigeon to a fledgling on the roof of the NYU dorm/apartment building on Mercer and 3rd. I think they were referring to the same building this fledgling was on but I’ll have to confirm that. But what I can say is that Sadie is keeping up and delivering food to her fledglings which is great!

I just hope the third fledgling is returned home soon because Sadie appears to be handling feeding her young despite them being scattered about as they are. And she has been seen keeping Juno at bay so that the fledglings can eat so that’s excellent news.

I am impressed that she appears to be making this chaotic (at least to me) situation work; she is spending her time both bonding with a new male and maintaining her motherly duties and feeding and protecting her and her previous mate’s offspring at the same time.