From the ground looking up, she is tucked down in the nest bowl with only her head showing.
The big excitement is when T2 flies in to give Mom a break from sitting on the eggs. This is when we often get a glimpse of those precious eggs around which they tiptalon so carefully.
Once he arrives, she is outta there! She has complete faith that he will cope with whatever antics the eggs might get up to. T2 looks a little less certain!
He often arrives with his trademark gift of greenery...
... and he now has clearly figured out how to break off large pieces with no problem.
He is also becoming increasingly comfortable with sitting on the eggs, and Mom sometimes has difficulty getting him up and off them when she returns from a break.
Sometimes, his gifts are edible and those get snatched immediately from him.
Definitely grab-and go food!
She often heads to the flat top of the nearby Civil War monument to eat.
The hawks also use the monument as a food cache, and one morning, Mom cleaned up this large, unidentified food item.
Sometimes, after T2 has caught prey, he will first take it to the monument and eat some of it...
... before heading over to the nest to take the rest back to Mom.
Other times, T2 will simply perch there surveying the city scene.
On Wednesday morning, T2 was very late for his changeover at the nest. Mom finally had to stand up and stretch her legs...
... then her wings
T2 -- call home!
This is how she looked from the front while waiting for T2, tapping her talons, perhaps?
Eventually, she had no choice but to settle back onto the eggs and wait for him to show up.
Understandably, hawk watchers become nervous when T2 is not where he should be, as we well remember the anxiety and sadness of last year when we watched and waited for Dad, and he never came back.
The following morning, though, all was well in hawkdom as T2 atoned for the previous day's tardiness by bouncing in just after sunrise.
During this incubation period, hawkwatchers often notice that as Mom settles back onto the eggs, she wriggles and arranges herself quite carefully. What she is doing is positioning her brood patch on top of the eggs to provide maximum warmth. The brood patch is a bare area of skin under the belly feathers.
Here's an image of a red-tail's (not Mom) brood patch, visible only when the wind blows her feathers apart.
John Blakeman offers these additional comments: "Formels, without question, have large, naked brood patches, against which they tuck and rock the eggs into direct contact. But I don't think (but don't yet know with exhaustive knowledge) that tiercels have a full brood patch. It appears to me that they lose only a reduced quantity of the downy breast feathers; that the eggs do get tucked up onto the breast, but not as well as with the formel's naked brood patch. I never saw a brood patch in the sitting tiercel in my Red-Tail breeding project. The brood patch of the sitting formel was very obvious."
Mom's brood patch is under those ruffled feathers, and you can almost see the pinker skin lower down.
Earlier this week, instead of flying into the nest, she landed on the ledge alongside the nest, bringing back memories from last year when she picked up the rat food drops.
New hawk watchers will see this ledge used extensively later in May and June when the eyasses are old enough to explore outside the nest.
What an imposing, beautiful hawk Mom is.
Whatever the excitement or travails of the day, by night fall she is always on the nest protecting the eggs from the chilly nights we're still having here in Philadelphia.
Every day, Kevin Vaughan shares his incredible images of these hawks on the Hawkaholic Facebook page. Here are some recent spectacular ones!
Here's T2:
T2 rarely looks intimidating...
... but in this image, he looks unusually fierce.
And now for Mom:
She almost always looks fierce, but here's a more pensive view.
Posts
Always a pleasure to read your updates Della. It IS interesting that the males always have the sweeter expression than the females. I wonder how Barnes feels about all the greenery they are losing? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnn F.
This was a fascinating post. I recall John Blakeman telling us about the brood patch, but this discussion gave me more information. The photo showing it was great. I enjoyed Kevin's photos, and the one that Carolyn took was gorgeous - T2 surveying the scene at the top of the monument.
ReplyDeleteI love your writing and story-telling ability, but this time was special. You managed to make the waiting game a pleasure!
Thanks, again.
Joyce
WOW.... this is taking FOREVER!!
ReplyDeleteOnce again, great writing and story telling. I love the part about how T2 'will cope with whatever antics the eggs might be up to'. Because we all know how crazy unhatched eggs can get! Thanks Della, and Kevin, and all the other photographers, as always. Great jobs all around. Jan B. from CA
ReplyDeleteReading this post and looking at all the amazing photos put a much needed smile on my face. Thank you
DeleteNikki G from NJ