The morning began with a very wet hawk sitting on the nest. With the rain darkening their feathers and the camera angle, it was difficult to tell whether it was the formel or the tiercel, but we think it was the tiercel (male).
A little later, the formel was on the nest, along with the remains of breakfast lying on the front nest rim.
Then around noon came the news that an egg had been sighted. Here is the formel covering her egg at 12:20 PM.
The tiercel returned to the nest, and then the moment we had been waiting for - the egg!
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I was watching for most of the time when the egg would have been laid, and it sure looked to me like the tiercel the whole time! Could we possibly have their identities mixed up? Supposedly the tiercel has dark face/lighter back and the formel has white face/darker back (less white). Yet the one who appeared to be laying an egg had dark face/light back. Any word from John on this?
ReplyDeleteThey change places on the nest very frequently so sometimes we do have them confused. Additionally yesterday, the rain was so heavy that both hawks were drenched and their feathers looked much darker than usual especially on their heads/faces which tend to get wet more easily, so our usual ways of identifying them were thrown off a bit during the excitement of the egg laying.
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