Hawk baby drama

[daphnep]

The short version: one of the hawks tried to fly before she was ready, and had to be rescued, but it all turned out okay because so many people were watching them, cheering them on, that they caught her distress before it turned into a tragedy.

I'll link you to the Inquirer story here:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090607_Baby_hawk_rescued_after_trying_to_fly.html

and a blog retelling here from one of the active participants on the Franklin Institute's website:
http://sunnydixie.blogspot.com/

(I think this was the woman we met, watching the nest on the Parkway last week.)

and give you a picture of the hawk, here:






She'll be rehabilitated with a foster hawk-mama and released into a wilderness area where she won't have to compete for territory or resources. And where I won't be able to watch her from my desktop, but oh, well. We get the others, right here in town, any time we want to see them.

Speaking of which, Dan sees them every day, flying around, because he works on the Parkway. On Saturday (the same day the one fledgling needed rescuing) he was walking with our friend Kim and they were buzzed by a low-flying hawklet, so low they could feel the rush of air on their heads and shoulders. The "babies" whirl and climb and plunge and do stunt manoeuvers, and are really strong flyers.

Comments

[lawbabeak.livejournal.com]

In a time of gargantuan problems we can't imagine having an effect on, it's really nice to get caught up in something small (and yet bigger than all of us combined) that we >can< help.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

That is very true, and a good way of summing up some of the appeal of internet bird-watching.

[thegarlicbite.livejournal.com]

How exciting!! I've been watching them off and on- I'm glad you updated.

[alchmst.livejournal.com]

Speaking of drama...

I was watching the little nymphs the other day and the sun was just right that a lady came to look from the inside and the angle caught her just right and lo and behold you could see all the way down her dress! I LMAO because if she only knew that her "must keep cool and wear nothing under my loose fitting dress" and then "must stare at baby hawks" and show my nothingness to the Internet actually GOT on the Internet....


I am such more the hawk watching fan these days, all thanks to you!

hahahahahahaha

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Okay, that is hilarious. Gives "bird watching" a whole new dimension.

[alchmst.livejournal.com]

*bird watching*

*blink*


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


touche!

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

*curtsy*

I try....obviously.

[moskevyu.livejournal.com]

Aw, poor girl. Glad she could be rescued and that she wasn't hurt.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

They put her back! For whatever reason, they decided her own parents could help her fledge better, and put her back in the nest. I watched last night, and again this morning. In another week or two, she can try to fly again.

This is so exciting....

[artemis77.livejournal.com]

I read about that - I'm so glad they were able to help her!

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Did you see they put her back in the nest? We can watch her, again. They decided less intervention was best, and that in spite of her premature jump, she was actually fine in the care of her real parents.

Which makes me feel a little warm and gooey inside.

[artemis77.livejournal.com]

I saw that note on the page today. It's good that she's home. I saw how they rehabbed hawks at the wildlife rehab here on Cape Cod, though, and either way would have been good. The hawks had very large outdoor enclosures so they could fly around - and they were given live prey to catch. Hawk preschool.

That guy who caught the hawk while wearing no protective gear was amazing (and slightly crazy - though I guess he had no time). I heard stories of people who were experienced with wildlife and one day they don't wear their goggles and almost lose an eye...

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

I love that people are adding in more and more information. In particular, I appreciate this assessment, from a raptor guy in Ohio, John Blakeman:

The Franklin Institute haggards [adult hawks] are superb...You people are right where the NYC folks were back in the 90s when Pale Male began his many years of breeding there at Central Park. But you've got it so much better. Your nest is so much closer to the earth, and it has the nest cam that reveals the most personal parts of incubation, pipping (cracking of the eggs), hatching, feeding, and all the rest of what's required to fledge a nest full of eyasses.

Now I've been studying wild red-tails since 1969, from Alaska and The West, to Hawk Mountain to the north of Philadelphia, and mostly in my native area of northern Ohio. But I learned more about the nuanced details of nesting and eyass-raising with The Franklin Institute nest this year than any of the dozens of ones I've studied in the wild. The nest cam provided views of things that were otherwise impossible to see and record.

This wasn't just a pair of hawks raising some "chicks." Much more than that. Here was a pair of wild red-tails that elected to come into the heart of one of America's great cities and raise a brood of eyasses there.

[artemis77.livejournal.com]

It's so cool what one nest has done.