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May 13, 2006

Baby hawks, for real!

We've been doing "BARNS" -- the Bay Area Raptor Nest Survey -- as volunteers for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory this spring as a sort of supplement to our usual fall Hawk Watch volunteer gig.

For several weeks we've been monitoring nests, sometimes seeing Red-tailed Hawks or Red-shouldered Hawks in or near the nest. But last week and this week we've gotten our first real treat -- baby raptors!

We have two Red-tailed nests for sure that have successfully hatched at least two young each. The first nest we found young in was pretty special -- we'd been watching the nest for weeks, with very little activity -- just an adult bird in the same tree once or twice during our rounds. While we were looking last week at an empty nest, Steve says, "Is that another nest lower in the tree?!" Sure enough it was, with an adult Red-tailed sitting proudly with two very cute downy young.

We're still trying to figure out the best way to take photos through our scope (and Aunt T managed to break her camera completely, which doesn't help!) But we have one photo of mom hawk with fuzzballs here and you can see the rest in Uncle Steve's April Archive.

Our other special nest is that of an almost albino male Red-tailed hawk, and we've found two nestlings in that one also. We're eager to see what they grow up to look like!

Posted by terrie at May 13, 2006 09:31 PM