22-APR-2010
Reverse Thrust!! (Day -3)
The mom's returning to her nest.
20-APR-2010
She's about 15 feet away, and appears to be getting to be quite accustomed to me. (Day -5)
The day before, I obliviously drove into my driveway, stopped, and was about to get out of the car, when I saw her eating a squirrel on the lawn about 12 feet away! I froze, then slumped down and hid my eyes behind the side rear-view mirror. She continued for 15 minutes, nervously looking around and then at me every 15 seconds or so. She appears to have been trying to analyze what this white car thing is that appears to have a human in it.
She then picked up the squirrel and hopped over til she was adjacent to the driver's door, about 8 feet away, where I could no longer hide my eyes. She re-arranged the squirrel several times, while studying me, and then decided she should return to the nest, leaving the squirrel behind.
A friend suggested that she was offering it to me. You never know! After dark, I disposed of the squirrel. This squirrel was part of mating couple of squirrels, and the mate came by a couple of times to look at her partner.
20-APR-2010
She's saying: "if you don't stop this mowing-the-lawn jazz, I'm not going to be your friend"
The day after the squirrel incident, I decided I had to cut the grass. In the middle of cutting an area adjacent to the tree, she flew over me (quite high up), around the house, and landed in the yard where she had eaten the squirrel.
I stopped mowing, and went to my car to fetch my camera. At that point, the hawk, not finding any remnants of the squirrel, flew up to this low gable above our porch, and proceeded to have a conversation with me using body language! It was amazing.
Only about 15 feet away, she didn't seem at all skittish about my photographing her.
20-APR-2010
She then flew to a nearby branch, where she was harrassed by a bluejay . . .
After she was done lecturing me, she flew to a nearby tree, where she was scolded by a bluejay.
20-APR-2010
. . . and then left the scene in a flurry.
The mom decided it was time to return to her nest, before the jay got any ideas of attacking the nest again.
A week ago I found a hawk-egg shell at the bottom of the tree. It was odor-free, so it probably came down early in the incubation period.
Around that time I had seen a blue jay flitting around the nest, with mama not in sight, for a few minutes. I don't know if she got any eggs then. But that might be connected with the shell that showed up.
Or mama may have broken it by accident.
26-MAR-2010
Lunch break..... (Day -30)
I couple of weeks ago, I came across her eating a squirrel in the crotch of a tree a block away. During her meal she moved to different parts of the tree a couple of times.
26-MAR-2010
Lunch break -- shifted to a different branch.
She eats her squirrel, with her hackles raised, she's warning me not to steal it -- or else! A couple weeks later she became much more comfortable with my presence.
25-MAR-2010
She's peering over the edge of the nest -- a common sight.
I'm about 100 feet away, and she seems to always know what I'm up to.
24-MAR-2010
Her tail overhangs the nest's edge.
A typical view. She occasionally shifts position in this way. A couple of times I saw tail feathers that were much redder. Perhaps that was the male?
I haven't seen both at the same time near the nest. When they're together, they're on their way to circling flight hundreds of feet up.