Sunday, May 22, 2011

Different year, different nest

Paul is absolutely correct. Different year, different nest, different possibilities. Even the layout of the nest is different, we get more back side views. These chicks don't know how fortunate they are getting all this food. Andy and I were estimating more than twice as much being dropped off compared to last year. Good pickens for the chicks which is more important, but last year the Three Amigos would stand together searching for their parents waiting for food. When the parents finally came delivering food they would cry and we would cheer that dinner had finally arrived. These guys have it good. When I left in the late afternoon, Buzz landed on the roof with a dead bird apparently waiting for Ruby. When she did not come within 5 minutes he dropped it in the nest. The chicks stared at each other and at the bird for a while, no rush, then started working on it. Half of it was hanging off the front of the nest and the devouring was pretty graphic and bloody (sorry). If the morning people come and the food is still there you will get good shots. If not, Ruby cleaned house. Hildy

Ruby Repairing Her Nest

MtAuburnSpring11+284A

Sal Perisano

coming home with the 'hamburgers'

buz+food+kids 5-22-11_0201 copy copy

i spent around six hours at the nest on sat. i spend so much time there i think i am turning into a 'red tail' (among other'things').
i have some great shots for (later}. this photo tells the story it has the kids and dad coming home with the 'hamburgers'. "georgie inspects while "honey and yahoo look on"
later ( or was that friday)ruby came in with a huge green branch to 'oohs and ahhs'. there was lots of company there all day . my favorite was all the dogs i met(being a dog lover). one small four year old mixed breed didnt want to leave me.
enjoy the day, george mclean

Saturday, May 21, 2011

photos

Once again I have a lot of good ones to share, so I'll post a few and give you the link to my Flickr page to see the rest, which includes a video of the chicks flapping their wings.

Ruby Flying Away
Ruby Flying Away

All Three Chicks
All Three Chicks

Chick Flapping its Wings
Chick Flapping its Wings

Buzz with Prey
Buzz with Prey

Buzz Leaving Nest with Chicks in Background
Buzz Leaving Nest with Chicks in Background

The rest of them can be seen at this link. The first 11 listed are from Saturday, and the first one is the video:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nemesis256/sets/72157626562616958/


Patrick
The segment was for 5 seconds. I was more excited for the hawks, they got their 20 seconds of fame. Hildy

TV spot

Hildy just told me she was interviewed at 185 and it will be on Channel 5 at 6 PM tonight!!! She's understandably excited about it :-) Ernie

Friday, May 20, 2011

more good night story

hawk+foot,+5-29-J_1654

ruby yelled"i thought i told you not to swallow it whole"? the baby answered "i know ma, but feet taste so good ! the old guywith the white hair (george)

lighten up

i am having all sorts of fun at the nest, watching silly people skip all around the young hawks names, as the great man said ! "what fools we mortals be"! who cares ?
meanwhile as 'hildy' said of yahoo (i didnt name him). "he is a terror"!. look at him try to eat half a bird.
i just down loaded 300 pictures from the last several days. i will try to post the exciting ones . my quote for the day is "lighten up!" george

more story

good night susan, good night georgie , good night honey, good night yahoo, good night hildy, and good night paul, good night claudia, good night nancy, good night dena!
do you think tomorrow will come ma? it always does yahoo!
will all those silly humans be there tomorrow mom? they always are georgie! mom ,can i have a leg for myself tommorow? yes honey if you dont swallow it whole while the old guy with the white hair is taking pictures!
well done susan ! 'the old guy with the white hair' (george)

good night fresh pond....

I stopped by 185 this evening around 7:30 PM and Ruby was hunkered down in the nest with the kids tucked in their nest bowl. Didn't see Buzz. After a few minutes there was some commotion as one chick got up to "do its business" as they say. Everyone settled back down and Ruby was back in her "brood" stance, covering the chicks. As the darkness set in, out of nowhere I saw Buzz zoom in front of 185, seemingly in a hurry to get to the trees by Fresh Pond (where I assume he roosts for the night). This short family scene inspired the following:


With apologies to Goodnight Moon and our hawk family...

The Red-Tails of 185: "Goodnight Fresh Pond"

Ruby: OK kids, time for bed. Everybody settle down. Are you ready for Goodnight Fresh Pond?
Chicks: Yeah. Yeah. We love that.
Ruby: Goodnight Fresh Pond Mall sign. Goodnight Whole Foods. Goodnight lamppost. Goodnight vole market. Goodnight Rindge Towers. Goodnight feeding post. Goodnight weathervane. Goodnight Abt and Social Security building. Goodnight Iggy’s. Goodnight railroad tracks.
Chick 1: Goodnight CVS sign.
Ruby: Goodnight T. J. Maxx.
Chick 2: Goodnight transmission tower.
Ruby: Goodnight Trader Joe’s.
Chick 3: My turn, my turn. Goodnight…um…goodnight moon.
Ruby: Goodnight Hotel Tria.
Chicks: Goodnight fake owl!
Ruby: Ha ha. I see you figured that out already.
Chicks: Goodnight flightless humans with your funny eyes.
Ruby: Goodnight roosting tree.
Ruby: Goodnight Fresh Pond. Ok, that’s it, kids. Heads down.
Chicks: Not yet. Can we hear it again? Please?
Ruby: Not tonight. Hunker down everyone. Looks like another night of cold, wet weather. Just look at these feathers – what a mess! I preen and preen all day, and for what? Oh well, I don’t think your father even notices.
Chick 1: Hey, move over.
Chick 2: Ouch! Mom, she stepped on my foot.
Chick 1: Well, if your feet weren’t so big…
Chick 2: Mom, she’s making fun of me again.
Ruby: Kids, what did I tell you? I know this nest isn’t like your cousin’s at Mt. Auburn, but it will have to do. There’s room enough if you all behave.
Ruby: Ok, it’s getting dark out. Everyone tucked in?
Chick 3: Mom, I have to go to the bathroom.
Ruby: Again? Ok, get up, but be careful. Don’t get too close to the edge.
Chick 1: Yeah, you better work on your aim too.
Chick 3: Mom!
Chick 2: No wonder you have to go again. You were quite the little pig at dinner tonight!
Chick 3: Mommmm!
Ruby: Leave him alone. He hasn’t had as much practice as the rest of you – and he needs to eat. He’s a growing boy (or girl)? You know, some days I just can’t tell!
Ruby: Anyone else have to go?
Chick 1: Not me.
Chick 2: Not me.
Ruby: Ok, enough procrastinating. Snuggle in. You kids are driving me crazy. Look at my head – see, you’re making my feathers turn white! You know I’m not supposed to look like an eagle.
Ruby: Now where is that father of yours? I told him it’s not safe flying around so late. You can hardly see on a good night, but with this low visibility...oh, there he goes. Say goodnight to your father.
Chicks: Goodnight Dad.
Buzz: Goodnight kids.
Ruby: Goodnight Buzz.
Buzz: Goodnight Ruby.


Goodnight all.

-Susan

Thursday, May 19, 2011

watching

Spent a couple of "sunny and warm" hours by the nest with Paul, George and a few others. Perhaps Paul will give his wonderful updates or perhaps he won't have the time. Both he and George got some good photos. The whole hawk family looked content and busy either hunting, protecting territory or constantly consuming. These chicks have their definite personalities. The oldest and largest is so dominant. She/he appears to grab and eat the prey almost whole. I think we should rename her Miss Piggy. Hildy

tripled in size

wow !!!!!!!!!!! stay away for a few rainy days and the chicks 'georgie, ,honey, and yahoo,--- who? have tripled in size . i was there with 'gabby'(my fellow dog lover) and david. and we all got great pictures. ruby spent a lot of time staring at her beauty in the window. she had one crash and recover and went up to the nest. (click) . the 'babys' are huge. we got a picture of the youngest with a birds leg sticking out of his mouth ! buzz came in fast and dropped a small bird. a little later ruby went into her attention mode ,zpped out and came back with a medium size heron , she had an exchange with buzz, hewent and sat on the sign in front of trader joes. the nest is to small for the five of them it looks like . george p.s. i try to keep my blurbs not to long winded

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

growing

Tail+Feathers+Emerging+IMG_4975
Which+One+is+a+Kid-+IMG_4962

If there isn’t much of a wind and you listen carefully, you can almost hear the three Redtail chicks growing. Some wag might say what I’m hearing is actually Buzz, huffing and puffing, as he supplies fuel to be stoked into the fiery feathered furnaces in the nest. That’s a reasonable surmise, because Buzz is busting his chops to keep four big hawks well fed. That is, three chicks and Mom. “Chicks” actually seems like a misnomer. These are ravenous young females, akin to a human family of teenage boys, only with Redtails, the females grow faster and bigger and stronger than their male siblings, and therefore they eat more (and more..and more.)

Buzz knows better than anyone. Today, in 2.5 hours from 11:30 to 2:00p.m. he made at least four food deliveries. All that I saw were small rodents, apparently mice, not voles. In one case, he made a delivery, left, and flew directly over to the east side of Alewife Brook Parkway, where he crashed into the grass. Seconds later he was back on the roof of 185 with a mouse dangling from his beak. Ruby helicoptered out of the nest up to the southeast corner of 185, next to her mate. He dropped the tasty morsel and she bent to pick it up as though it were a box of Godiva chocolates that might disappear if not held tightly. They sat together, a scene of marital bliss, before she parachuted back into the nest. The kids treated it as chocolate. It was inhaled, orally, supporting reports of kids taking a small rodent and swallowing it whole.

After this last mouse, Buzz disappeared, Ruby retreated back to the southeast corner of the building, and the three kids did what they do so well. Sleep. And grow. Sleeping is when that mouse fur and muscle is transmogrified into feather and muscle. Into bulk. The byproduct is increasingly voluminous streams of whitewash. A word to the wise. If you see a large brown hawk with a whitish head flapping her wings furiously and bowing to the west, do not attempt to enter 185 Alewife Brook Parkway without benefit of an umbrella.

The good news is that Ruby did not attack her image(s) while I was watching, though she spent a fair amount of time sitting on a railing on the south side of the front facing her challenger(s). After the last mouse, she flew up to the southeast corner of the building where she preened her wet feathers for a full thirty minutes. (Are she and Buzz going out of a date tonight?) I’ve had not seen her preening so long anytime this year. (She had even been preening earlier on the railing, facing her image, which suggests she wasn’t feeling too threatened today.) Maybe it was just the 100% humidity. You just know what it can do to hair, I mean, feathers.

Buzz has his talons full. Or he needs to have his talons full, to keep those “chicks” growing. Today was the most frequent set of food deliveries I have seen this year, and none of the prey was particularly large. The kids have not shown any sign of lacking food. Quite the contrary. But I’ve seen very few large prey, such as squirrels, delivered to the nest this spring. That means more hard work for Buzz. Redtails are opportunists, taking what is most readily available. The larger female has a better chance of taking larger, but less abundant prey. The smaller, quicker male has the ability to take smaller, faster, and generally more abundant prey. Last year Buzz brought in a number of squirrels, but also a number of small birds, including Robins and Starlings just out of the nest. I can well imagine Buzz sitting high, looking for Robins and Starling adults delivering food to their nests. Reconnaissance can pay off. He also has some idea as to where clutches of young rodents are emerging from their nests to feed. Lately he’s brought in some small Chipmunks, and earlier he was bringing some many snakes I thought he had to be scarfing them from the reptile house at the zoo there were so many. Whatever, Buzz is obviously up to the task, despite the changing challenge. The next two weeks will be the biggest challenge, however.

The kids, meanwhile, are large. But they are clearly still kids. Last week I was watching the youngest, Whitey. Suddenly his/her eyes seemed to grow huge, though actually they can’t do that at all. Whatever, his expression was priceless as he looked into the eastern sky. I turned around to see a Lufthansa 747 lumbering into the air over Cambridge, wheeling to the west and then south. Whitey, who has been sitting in the back of the nest behind two hulking siblings, had apparently never seen a 747 before. Perhaps he thought that was the largest hawk he/she had ever seen! Yesterday the Bobbsey twins, Alpha and Beta, sat in the front of the nest peering over the edge with necks craned to look below. What aroused their interest I don’t know, but they were really curious. (Could they have been mentally measuring those whitewash shots?)

Whatever, rain or shine, the saga continues, though not for long. Yesterday the Bobbsey Twins had a full set of primaries and secondaries sprouting from the trailing edges of their young wings, with bare bases of feathers exposed on the “wrist” above. Today they were covered with coverts. The underwing coverts are now beginning to come in as well, and the brother feathers are showing through the sheaths on the crowns of the Bobbsey twins. Whitey is still white. Alpha and Beta have substantial tails growing. Whitey has a mere stub of a tail. That won’t last much longer.

By the way, if in “Which one is a kid” you selected the bird on the right, you failed. You were only 33.3% right. All three are “kids.”

Best,

Paul


Paul M. Roberts
Medford, MA
phawk254@comcast.net

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

they're big!

I agree with Paul that it's been fascinating to watch--I didn't learn about the hawks last year until later in May so to watch the chicks grow this fast is really something.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you talented photographers who are so generously sharing your pictures of our favorite family with the rest of us. You probably have no idea what a treat it is to be able to look at them whenever we want to or to show them to people who have never seen a hawk in such detail.

I am there early every morning mainly to observe Ruby and Buzz and get a sense of their routine and how they're doing. A couple of other people are often there also and they like to watch the chicks, however lately I'm too nervous about them falling out of the nest to watch them very much! They're big! So I don't get to see many people out there but hopefully soon I'll also be able to be there in the evenings and will see more of you then.

Amy

DRENCHED

I was at the nest from 5:30-6:30PM checking on my feathered friends. Ruby was in the nest calmly sitting and tending to her chicks which was nice to see. Those chicks are getting huge! I wasn't sure if they were adults or chicks looking at their size and change in colors. But those white heads give it away. From 5:30 to 6:15 Ruby sat with her impatient chicks while waiting for dinner. There was much crying and looking over the edge from the two biggest, but Ruby stayed patient. Sometimes they would all huddle in the corner near the window and peck at something, poor pickings I quess. At 6:15 Buzz came by and landed on the right edge of the roof with talons empty. He was DRENCHED and looked ratty and small, half the size of his chicks! As buzz sat on the edge of the roof, Ruby flew out of the nest and landed on a girder by the windows. She stared at her self for 5 minutes while Buzz sat on the roof. After he took off she paced the length of the right girder several times following her reflection on the window. She did intentionally bump her wing several times and her beak once at her reflection, but it looked more gentle, no slamming and falling. Buzz returned at 6:25 with a small rodent, a mouse perhaps. He brought it to the left corner of the roof and Ruby followed sitting with him and the mouse. They sat together, she made a sound and it looked like they were having "a moment". After about 5 minutes, he left and she continued to stay on the roof with the dead mouse for another 5 minutes. She then brought the mouse into the nest. I was happy to be have been able to see what I came to see. All 5 look well and thriving. I just wished that I had seen a run away umbrella land on the pinnacle of 185 to help keep these guys dry, but no suck luck! Hildy

shots

hmm...
how+rude!
hawk+in+flight
food!

did anybody get shots of the eagles?.... -David-Marc Goldstein

youngest

Whitey+IMG_4868

Forgot to attach the photo of the youngest chick.

Paul

watching and caring

I am a bit surprised at the relative absence of observers and of discussion of the three chicks in the nest at 185. The past two weeks have been fascinating as I’ve watched three fluff balls develop into incredibly large birds with feathers and wings and personalities. It’s been a marvel to see them change literally overnight, every night. This is a rare opportunity to see three young birds develop into “young adults,” who should be ready to fly in about two+ weeks. This opportunity may then be gone, period. At times it seems as though no one else is watching, or cares.

Watching the nest the past week or so, I was reminded of views of humpback whales, playfully slapping their flippers against the ocean in exhilaration, or just to hear the noise, or to tease or impress their companions, or to communicate over long distances. The nest would look empty, only to be suddenly alive with a long, white humpback’s flipper slicing through air rather than water. A kid trying out, stretching and flapping, one of her or his wings before it developed its upper- and underwing coverts. You can still see these whales slicing air at 185.

This morning Buzz brought in some food, which I could not identify. It was small, and all three chicks were up and pecking at it. All I could see was a gang of brown-shirted rugby players in a scrum, showing me their nether portions as they faced away from me and picked at the morsel. Just a few minutes earlier, there had been chicks in the nest. From my “butt-on” view, they could easily be mistaken for adults. They were virtually as large as adults.

When they took a break, three Bald Eagles appeared. Three white heads on three brown-backed bodies, prompting passers-by more than ever to ask if those were eagles up there. They looked more like miniature eagles than Redtails!

Today, in the light drizzle, I thought I saw the oldest chick, sitting regally like an adult Bald Eagle, with its proud, white head, facing south. I refer to the largest, presumably oldest, and most aggressive chick as “Alpha” for operating purposes. The slightly smaller bird, slightly behind Alpha’s development curve, is Beta. The third bird I’ve been calling “Whitey,” because it has always been noticeably whiter than its older siblings. It might just as well be called “Bashful,” because you see it far less frequently than his/her older, more aggressive siblings. Whitey typically eats last, and is the last to helicopter to exercise its young, rapidly growing wings. Alpha does whatever she wants. Whitey does whatever Alpha allows him/her to do.

Whitey is not as young, vis-à-vis, its siblings, as Lucky was vis-à-vis Lucy and Larry, but it is still the smallest and more adorable chick, the baby of the clutch. It shamelessly imitates its older siblings, and “respects” their right to have first choice. Today, while Whitey was playing Bald Eagle, Ruby suddenly appeared, landing in the southeast quadrant of the nest, the only portion not occupied by three hulking juvenile hawks. However, as she landed and she attempted to get her right wing properly adjusted, she nudged Whitey, who was standing relatively close to the edge of the nest. Whitey sat down as though sucked back to the nest by a vacuum cleaner. Whitey was not ready for any unplanned adventures.

When Whitey first stood up, I had thought it was probably Alpha, based on its size and development. Until Alpha and Beta stood up and revealed how much they had developed in the past 23 hours. The changes are that dramatic on a day-to-day basis. Whitey has streaks of brown buttons down his/her breast, somewhat like a double-breasted suit, only there are at least five vertical rows of “buttons,” the sheaths of his ventral body feathers coming in, brown but yet unfurled as they emerge from their keratinous tubes. When those plumes start to burst out, Whitey will look like a different bird. Alpha and Beta look much grayer-brown on their still-downy heads, so Whitey still lives up to his/her name, but that might not be the case for long. Whitey now has a rusty breast, emulating his older siblings. He also has a necklace of feathers that are already emerging around the base of his/her rusty breastplate. The feathers are also sprouting down his flanks. You can still see his ears, about 7 o’clock behind his eyes, and the white occipital spot on the back of the heads of all the chicks.

As the rugby scrum broke up, Alpha looked virtually as big as Buzz, perhaps rivaling Ruby. Others have seen her backside and assumed they were seeing Ruby in the nest! These chicks also have their own personalities, but you have to observe them for a while to discern the differences. They way things look, the two older chicks, and possibly all three, could be females. We should have a better idea by the end of this week.

Today one of the chicks was in the back of the nest, against the wall. I saw its butt rise high in the air, above the rest of the body. The not-so-little wings started flapping furiously, and suddenly a large stream of ”whitewash” exploded into the air, coursing over the other chicks in the nest, clearing the nest wall, and cascading like limestone raindrops to the concrete five stories below. I was glad no one was walking into the building at that time because it was heavy white rain. I wondered if the culprit had just found it too bothersome to trod across a nest of large siblings to void from the edge, or if it was some juvenile sense of power (or humor) that caused this blast from the back of the pack. The flurry of wing activity in the process made it look as though the bird had been pumping up the pressure to achieve such distance. (Boys, at least, remembering their childhood, might better appreciate this achievement.)

It started to rain heavily. I retreated to the car trying to keep my camera and binoculars dry. The kids hunkered down. How could three creatures that big disappear into something that looked that small and confining? The nest looked empty. Anyone walking by could easily believe the chicks were gone. In less than three weeks they will be.

Best,

Paul


Paul M. Roberts
Medford, MA
phawk254@comcast.net

stress and fixation

Thanks for the update. I hope Buzz is okay since he did not answer her call for support. It is much more difficult watching the nest this year due to Ruby's destructive behavior. I gladly anticipate the chick's fledging to end her stress and fixation. I need to remind myself that I am watching the "animal kingdom" Hildy

still fixated on her reflection

I was over between 11:30 and 1:45 yesterday. Buzz was not seen at all. Ruby spent about 10 minutes in the nest during that period, at 12:15 and 1:00 p.m. At the latter she fed the kids something briefly.

She spent a fair amount of time on the railings, but was relatively calm. Occasionally she hopped up and down a railing. She hit the south wall of the atrium once. Several times she flew around to the south side of the building, landing in the tree and attacking the window at least once. When she did that, she also called loudly as she flew a very short distance between the tree and the glass. I tried to run over each time she went there, but she spent about 10 minutes in the trees over four intervals, plus several minutes in the trees on the SE corner of the building after feinting at her image in the window. The kids got up once to stretch and turn around and void, and I had a few brief moments of all three chicks sitting together in the front of the nest. Most of the time they were just hunkered down, with two of the kids standing up, helicoptering, separately about ten minutes apart. Ruby crashed only twice that I saw, but was still fixated on her reflection despite low, dark clouds and intermittent light drizzle.

Best,

Paul

amazing picture

ed4982f7-f139-4161-9280-2a5195b1ab91.Large
Ruby feeds Georgie

"check out this amazing picture and i am sorry i sent a whole gallery? i guess i need another cup of coffee, or a frontal lobotamy? george"

Monday, May 16, 2011

red tail band numbers

Nice work, Patrick.

I just spoke with someone at the state department of fish and wildlife (about something else) and asked him about the band number. He said that usually there would be five numbers after the dash on the band. There are usually three or four numbers then a dash and then five numbers. Any chance you can find two more?

However, he did say that it is unusual that Buzz was banded on his left leg since most banding is done on the right leg. This fact may help identify who did the banding.

We're getting closer!

-Susan

Sunday, May 15, 2011

photos

Hildy already reported what I saw, so I'll get right to the photos. I have a lot of them to share today, so I apologize if it slows down the site or your email!

Buzz Leaving Nest
Buzz Leaving Nest

Chick Eager to Eat
Chick Eager to Eat (sorry, I can't tell who's who)

Ruby Taking out the Trash
Ruby Taking out the Trash

Ruby with Twig
Ruby with Twig

Ruby Challenging her Reflection
Ruby Challenging her Reflection

Chick Flapping its Wings
Chick Flapping Its Wings

And here's what you've probably been waiting for, Buzz's Band! Most of these are hard to read, but from what we already knew, and a combination of these six, I think the number may be 1207-853. The 3 is the one I'm least certain about since it only appears in the middle of the bottom row, and is also very blurry.
Shots of Buzz's Band

good (rainy) morning

Good (rainy) morning, hawkwatchers. Thanks to Susan Moses, we had a particularly exciting Saturday. The Tufts facility in Grafton, that had been caring for the injured 33 Oxford St. hawk for the past month, felt the hawk was ready to go home and gave Susan the happy task of releasing the red tail back into the wild. Susan and Amy got the bird at about 11:30AM in Grafton and came to Oxford St., Cambridge. At 12:45PM Saturday, on the grass in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Susan opened the box and the hawk flew out like a champ, quickly landing on a tree across the street, where its 2010 nest was located. The hawk surely knew it was home. Soon after that our released hawk and two other hawks were soaring overhead, often bumping each other and, finally, locking talons and spinning in a spiral. What a display.....I look forward to talking with Paul for an explanation about this activity.
Susan followed the progress of the hawk throughout its rehabilitation and Tufts felt she was the perfect candidate to set the hawk free. I sent some pix and explained the story in an email to Ken MacLeod of WBZ-TV, who did the story on Buzz and Ruby and the kids last year. Ken did a short piece on the release on the 11PM news last night. I hope some of you caught it......
GOOD WORK, SUSAN!!!!!!!! Here's the story in pictures......I've included the photo of the two hawks with talons locked...They were really high in the sky so I don't know if the photo will give you a sense of what was happening. In one of the in-flight photos you can see the new band on the hawk.........Johngarp

Ruby's brood patch

Microsoft PowerPoint - Presentation1

Saturday, May 14, 2011

content chicks

I am enjoying all the beautiful photography coming on the site. Either experienced or amateur photographers, I admire it all.
This year the happening at the nest has not brought in a crowd like last year, every year is different. I find it more fun sharing the excitement, maybe when the chicks get ready to fledge, we can share the excitement/anxiety again.
I was there from around 1:15 to 2:30 with Patrick and another fellow. Patrick had been there since 10am. He saw Ruby smash into the window on the side of 185 closest to Circle furniture. He also saw her tap at the window on the left side of 185 and look at her reflection on the right side of 185. When I came at 1:15 she was in the nest looking somewhat relaxed, not too antsy but looking for Buzz, I assume. He did a couple fly bys with no food. Patrick said the chicks had not been fed for three hours but they appeared content, relaxing and stretching, no crying. There does seem to be an obvious hierarcy in that nest, a definite pecking order. Last year the three seemed to have a conradery. Ruby left the nest and sat in a tree by Fresh Pond for close to 20 minutes then appeared on the pinacle for 5-10 minutes. The chicks seemed very content, no crying when Ruby landed on the pinnacle so they must not of been that hungry. She took off, I went to Whole Foods for 15-20 minutes. When I returned to the nest Ruby was feeding her chicks.
With all this all this devotion and time and writting, I think we should should get some course credit. I know, is a labor of love! Hildy

feeding babies

134703687.P5BtDIuf 134703683.RiQyvGfL
134703684.wtcmbrBa 134703685.VawXshfS

We were there from around 9:30 to 10:45AM with a slight break inside Whole
Foods. Around 10:30 Ruby? arrived with some prey covered with leaves. She
then proceeded to tear it up and feed it to the babies. We left shortly
after.

When we first arrived around 9:30 the babies were alone in the nest. We did
occasionally see one of the parents flying around and briefly stopping in
the nest and then leaving.

Joan Chasan
Framingham, MA

Monday, May 2, 2011

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Joan Chasan's Slide show link

snake for lunch

At around 11:50AM Buzz flew in with a snake and the two of them proceeded to
feed the chicks. Pictures of the activity will be posted later, when I get
them edited. We left sometime after 12 noon when things quieted down again
and Buzz flew off to hunt for more food. -Joan Chasan
Three Chicks 1 IMG_0746

This morning I watched as Ruby fed all three chicks through two sequences. More to come later. Here are my first modest photos of the three chicks, one showing all well; one with one of the chicks stretching his little, little wings (much larger than they were three days ago) ; and one with the youngest chick looking at me and you. They are very alert, and increasingly curious, and adventurous. However, they cannot yet sit up on their haunches for any period of time. They are changing every day. Speaking of changing, I found out why they don’t wear diapers. More tonight or tomorrow.

Best,

Paul

poo poo

Looks like Buzz and Ruby are setting up the grill. Look at all that poo poo! I don't remember that much last year. Maybe it's all that snake! They need a good rain to wash that off! -Hildy