UPDATE: Go have a look at the Hawkcam now and you might see the second chick take its first flight—live! It’s standing on a beam looking as if it might take off.
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I’ve been really remiss in keeping people updated on the red-tailed hawks at Cornell University’s live hawkcam. While I’ve been busy berating theologians, the baby hawks have grown up, and readers have been keeping me up to date. Anyway, one of the chicks fledged today, and here’s a video of its very first flight (thanks to reader ivy privy for the info).
The bird looks so tentative, but then resolutely takes the plunge off the tower. One wonders what goes through the mind of an animal whose genes are telling it to fly but whose brain hasn’t experienced flight. Was it scared? It seems to have done okay, as the end of the video shows.
Still, the fledging appears to have not acclimated fully to flight, as these posts from the website show:
CornellHawks— After perhaps ten minutes on the ground, the young hawk gathered its nerve and flew, screeching, across the street and into a small oak
CornellHawks — where it landed upside-down and dangled for a minute. It was a tense moment, but eventually the fledgling righted itself.
CornellHawks 17-57 Ezra delivers another chipmunk
The Decorah Bald Eagles will be fledging any moment too: ,a href=”http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles”>http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles
I just got back here from that website.
The first fledgling made it back to the nest a little while ago. #2 looks like it might be soon. L
It looked to me like the bird slipped and fell, but perhaps not. (After all, it presumably hadn’t fallen previously.)
She was pushed.
The sibling was preening its back at the time.
That’s how it looked to me too, especially considering surprised ‘squawk’ that happened as it fell.
An aside, as is my wont…
A coworker just came up to me and asked me if I heard birds in here. It actually took me a second to realize it was the fledglings, and turn off the sound on my laptop. It was a beautiful noise.
More uploaded videos from the hawk cam, including footage of #1 returning to the nest.
In 2009 I assiduously watched the bald eagle nest cam at Patricia Bay, BC (usually referred to as the Sidney nest) for the whole season. When each chick decided to fly, it just took off suddenly, no hesitation at all. The first to go spent an hour or so whizzing about before returning to the nest.
It’s really quite astonishing how skilful birds are as fliers even on their first flight.
As for slipping upside down after landing, I’ve seen that among bald eagles also, though not at Pat Bay. It appears that flight is easier than landing without a bump.
Just as with humans!
And please keep an eye out for the Ospreys nesting beside the Dyfi (Dovey) estuary in mid-Wales ….
http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com/stream
2 (accidentally) fledged with 1 following shortly after, 3 is lonely.
From the video where #1 returned, #2 and #3 seemed to salute [his] approach and landing. Awesome.
I wondered how long it would take for #1 to muster the stamina to return to the nest. Not very long, apparently.
As of ~ 3:45 EDT,
#1 and #2 are in trees across the street, near Bradfield and Fernow Halls. One of the parents observed landing on roof on Sea Grant building, to keep an eye on them.
About a dozen people wandering around with cameras and binoculars.
#3 is still in the nest and appears to be in no hurry to leave.
The bald eagles at Pat Bay again: once the chicks had fledged, the parents were run ragged trying to keep them from straying too far away. You can see the nest just to the left of the telephone pole in this StreetView scene:
http://maps.google.com/?ll=48.66996,-123.45784&spn=0.001118,0.002065&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=48.669891,-123.457841&panoid=bbGWMuWvMgVU6DXvspIskg&cbp=12,95.72,,2,-1.76
Go out of StreetView to map view and zoom out a little: you’ll see that Patricia Bay iteself is less than a kilometer to the SW. At least one of the 2009 fledglings headed out across the water (the other shore is clearly visible) and had to be herded back by Pa Eagle.
How two parents managed to keep three fledglings under control beats me.
Ithaca is located right at the foot of Cayuga Lake, so I imagine Ma and Pa Osprey there will have similar difficulties as the youngsters explore further afield.
Ma and Pa Hawk, not Ma and Pa Osprey.
The entire hawk family, raised over a parking lot next to a busy street, seems neither frightened nor bothered by humans. The first few flights offer the danger of anding in front of a bus, but the nearest water hazard is Beebe Lake, maybe a quarter mile to the north. There is plenty of good hunting habitat in the Cornell Plantations for training the young’uns. The construction site east of Fernow Hall, just across the street, may serve for the first lessons in chipmunk hunting.
In high school I used to count osprey nests at a breeding colony at BLue Cypress Lake. I remember that at the time when the fledglings started to think about flying that the alligators would come out of the woodwork to hang out under the cypress trees with nests in them. I liked to imagine the gators hungrily saying, “Go on! I believe in you– jump!”
Friday morning update: On Thursday, chicks #1 and #2 left the nest, and occasionally moved about in the nearby trees. #1 returned to the nest about dinner time, and spent the night in the nest along with #3. #2 is believed to still reside in a tree between the parking lot and Tower Road. Quite a number of hawk watchers came by to pay their respects and take pictures.
Some more info on the first fledgling’s adventures can be found at: http://www.discovering-nature.net/2012/06/06/fledge/