BREAKING NEWS - Third Egg Arrrives!!!!!

The third egg arrived on Friday, March 19 at about 11:00 am EST.
Let the hatching begin......

The Arrival of the Second Egg.... and will there be a third?

Thanks again to CamFan in Oklahoma, who sent me this edited footage of the formel laying her second egg in the morning of March 16. Because we FINALLY had some sun in Philadelphia yesterday, the sun glare drains some of the color.

Following the camera footage is some commentary from John Blakeman as to whether there may be a third egg from the formel.

From John Blakeman:

"The likelihood of a third egg is now pretty good, I think.

Still, it was an inordinate period between the first and second eggs. We have to understand that the structural and molecular synthesis of an egg is a very metabolically intense process. All the calcium, for example, in the egg shells and dissolved in the albumen, which will be used to make the eyass's bones, came right from the bones of the formel herself.

The same is true for the lipids, the fats of the egg, that will power the eyass before hatching and eating. All of those nutrients came from the formel's body, not directly from her food.

The egg is assembled in a day or so during its descent down the single fallopian tube. It takes a lot out of the formel. That's why it's so important for her to feed well in January and February, to pack in reserves of all that makes the new eggs. If the heavy snows in February made hunting more difficult, because the rats, and mice couldn't be seen under the thick and pervasive snow, the formel may not have been able to load up enough fats, proteins, and minerals to make three eggs.

We won't know this for a day or more. I think one indication that another egg is on its way will be the manner in which the formel settles down on her eggs. Right now, she's just rather cavalierly descending on them. But she's not jostling or rocking back and forth when she descends. When we see that, we will know that she's entered the hard incubation period, where she will be extremely diligent in getting the eggs tightly positioned against her naked and warm brood patch on her belly and chest (beneath the feathers we see on the outside).

So, all we can do now is wait.

But even with two eggs, all should be well. As it happens, out here in the northern Ohio countryside, two eggs are the most common number in red-tail nests, with many nests having only one egg. There is actually a lot more for a red-tail to kill and eat in Philadelphia than out here in more "normal" red-tail habitat.

90% of the land here in the exceptionally flat Lake Erie Plain, is planted in row-crop corn and soybeans each year. These massive farm fields are biological deserts. There is nothing in them that a hawk or anything else can eat. Our hawks have to pounce on mice and voles (not moles, which are underground) they see scurrying around in grassy roadside ditches and rights of way.

Once again, here's to our Franklin Institute pair of red-tailed hawks. Little do they know (or care) about the hundreds of people watching them raise another family of eyasses.

--John Blakeman

Late-breaking news: 2nd egg arrives!

The second egg appeared this morning at around 10:15 AM.

This screen shot was taken at 1:15 PM, and because the sun is finally shining in Philadelphia, there is some sun-glare.

How much sex for another egg?

I wonder how many work hours were lost yesterday as we anxiously watched the nest for the appearance of a second egg?

Though the single egg was faithfully attended by a parent hawk most of the time, there were periods yesterday when neither hawk was on the nest, and then observers on the ground reported seeing them copulating. The question then asked was "Does each egg have to be fertilized and then it will be laid?"

At the rate our happy hawks have been observed "doing the deed" the nest would by now be overflowing with eggs!

John Blakeman gives us another chapter of hawk knowledge:

"No, a single copulation event is enough to supply sufficient sperm to impregnate all the eggs, one, two, or three. Many falcons for falconry are captivity bred with artificial insemination, and a single introduction of semen into the falcon's cloaca is usually sufficient.

But let's face it. Red-tails like to have sex. They do it frequently, from late January (or earlier) all the way through the breeding season. Some birds even copulate in June, right in the view of the new eyasses (Have they no shame?)!

That, of course raises the question of the neural responses (well, let's be plain, the eroticism) of the birds. In this venue I won't speculate too deeply (Is that the word?) about this matter. But I don't think it's much like human or mammalian sex. Still, the hawks like to have sex. They like the amorous preliminaries, the stooping flights (which aren't always necessary) and the come-hither bowing of the formel, etc.

As with humans, the sex act is a significant and reinforcing factor of the pair bond. I find it hard to convey the significance of this, how each bird so calmly, even lovingly, in a hawk-like way, so easily tolerates his or her mate. This is not the basic nature of these birds. They are independent, isolated, and otherwise self-sufficient. Except for breeding, they have no need or interest in social interactions with other red-tails. Only in this pair-bond arrangement do these things so wonderfully happen, and at the Franklin Institute we get to see them so intimately. Just great.

It's about 4:00 PM EDT [on Monday March 15]. I've been watching the formel sitting now for some time. I think she's getting ready to lay once again. The time is right, and she's a bit calmer."

--John Blakeman

However, as twilight arrived on another gray, wet, windy day in Philadelphia, there was no second egg. After sitting on the nest for over two hours, the formel stood up and then flew off the nest, and the egg was left alone as darkness fell.

Perhaps today......

Day 2 of The Egg

Here are the first close-up views of the egg, kindness of Gene Mancini, the hawks' Godfather at the Franklin Institute.


You can definitely see the mixed stream recycling the hawks have going with their newspaper and plastic!














Early this morning (Sunday), Kay Meng and I decided to meet down at the nest to check out what was happening. Forgetting about the clocks switching forward, it was almost total darkness when I arrived outside the Franklin Institute at 6:30 AM, but there was just enough light to see a hawk up on a lamp pole about 50 feet from the nest.

On seeing me and Kay, he (as we later determined) flew immediately to the nest with a couple of indignant squawks, and settled down on the egg. No other bird was on the nest, so we realized the egg had been alone, with the male watching it from close by.

After ten minutes or so, the tiercel stood up, leaned forward and picked up a dead mouse that had evidently been left in the nest as a snack. He started eating it, then the formel arrived with her own mouse, and the tiercel left after a couple of minutes.

In the space of the next couple of hours, we saw the male and female come and go from the nest several times, and despite the appallingly stormy weather of the previous 24 hours, and the continuing rain, they seemed to be having no trouble finding fresh food.

We noticed that there is now a screen in the Boardroom behind the nest. Here's what it looks like from inside. (Gene's pic)

Yesterday evening, Susan Holmes, the Senior Museum Educator at the Franklin Institute sent me this observation after checking on the hawks late afternoon:

"... it’s 4:40 pm and I just went down to look at the hawk from the darkness of the boardroom... He/she is sitting there a little damp and fluffed up, but out of the wind ... and looks quite contented, watching the goings-on in the street below and chirrupping (sp?) quietly to him/herself."

This gives you an idea of what Gene saw through the rainy Boardroom window at noon today - getting up close with the formel.

Who's watching whom?

The building in the background is the main branch of the Free Library.

The outdoor camera gives a different angle on the nest, and this shows, as John Blakeman suggested, that the hawk is not really nestling down on the egg as much as just leaning over it to keep it protected from the elements.

A final view from today (Sunday) comes from the Ustream camera which we have all been watching avidly. This is the tiercel, rather anxiously looking out from the nest, after sitting on the egg for a while.

He seems less willing than the formel to stay for long periods with the egg. A moment after I took this screen shot, he was gone!

The Arrival of the First Egg

On a stormy wet day in Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute formel laid her first egg. If you missed the actual moment, here is the Ustream camera footage, kindly edited and sent to me by CamFan in Oklahoma. Following this video clip are some images from today.

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!

EGG!!!! (Updated)

In the midst of the vicious wind and rain storm currently battering Philadelphia, the formel laid her first egg around noon today. Here she is sitting on her egg at 12:30PM.

John Blakeman has been watching the camera feed and comments:

"Couldn't see the egg, but the behavior sure was persistent and different.

I doubt that this is the tiercel. I think it has to be the formel on the nest. The tiercel just doesn't have the sitting motivation like the formel after she's laid an egg.

And notice that as I predicted, the bird is not jostling down and sitting tight on the egg. She's just keeping it covered, not really incubating yet. That'll start when the last egg is laid.

Could be only two eggs this year, because of the persisting snow and difficulty killing enough food during the snow.

Someone noted that the sitting haggard this morning (Sat., 13 March) looked a bit ragged.

That's because of the rains the previous night. I've explained earlier that the hawks spend a lot of time preening, distributing water-repelling oil from the oil gland on the rump to all the feathers of the body. Yet, in a soaking downpour, rain still penetrates some of the outer body feathers, and they tend to clump up in their soggy condition.

This is what made the haggard look "ratty." The downy insulating feathers beneath remain dry and warm. But for a while, the bird can look a bit disheveled. But it's quite normal, something the hawks deal with in heavy or persisting rains."

-- John Blakeman