Male And Female Red-tailed Hawks Taking Off From Their Nest

Nine days ago I spent some time (at a respectful distance) with a mated pair of Red-tailed Hawks as they were refurbishing their nest.

 

1/6400, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

They were both busy carrying nesting material to the nest and occasionally (twice actually) both birds were on the nest at the same time. Here the male, a striking and somewhat unusual dark morph, is taking off in his quest for more construction material as his mate looks on.

 

 

1/6400, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in

A couple of seconds later the female followed him. A small portion of the nest can be seen at the right frame edge.

I posted several other photos of these hawks a week ago but these are new to my blog. I’m still waiting for our weather to clear up so I can get out in the field again. In the meantime I thought these two were interesting enough to be shared.

Ron

 

24 Comments

  1. Happy housebuilding hawks! Wasn’t there a female dark morph around that area as well or have I confused locations and/or birds?

    We’re finally starting to dry out. I was going to say no rain in the 10-day forecast, but I just double-checked and darned if there isn’t rain forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday. Sigh…

  2. Such a beautiful pair, glad you’ve shared them with us again, and I hope you find them still with a well-constructed nest when you’re able to get back to their area. We’ve had two days of lovely sun and semi-warm (though somewhat windy) weather, but supposed to be interrupted by another storm Tues. Sorry to say I’m not so confident in your opportunities next week. 🙁

  3. Definitely worth sharing. WHAT a privilege for you (and us) to see. I hope your weather breaks soon.

  4. Looking at all the twigs and stems and each requiring a foray. What dedication.

    I thought it would be interesting to calculate the time from copulation nine or so days ago to egg laying all the way to fledging but got flummoxed from the get go. Incubation (time from egg laying to hatching) seems to be conflated with gestation (time from copulation to egg laying) by most accounts.The only info I could find on gestation time was at a Cornell site and it said it was generally about 24 hours. So, why did they copulate and continue building the nest? To me that would indicate that there are days between copulation-gestation-egg laying. Perhaps you or Dan Gleason can elucidate.

  5. Charlotte Norton

    Super shots! Thanks for sharing!

  6. Beautiful! Male REALLY “flexing” his primaries for takeoff in the 1st photo. Looking forward to following what is, hopefully, a successful nesting season. 🙂

    Storm, so far, has amounted to a few rounds of graupel. Of course, cloudy last night so no northern lights. Often the case…. At the same time I’m glad I don’t live in the SE right now!

    • Graupel! new word for me. Thanks Judy

      • Frances, “graupel” is a word I actually used earlier this morning – to a friend describing one of yesterday’s snow squalls coming through. There was a pair of Mallards in my front yard and the graupel.was actually bouncing off of them.

    • Judy, the amount of snow we’ve had this winter is truly impressive. Several of our ski resorts have surpassed 700″ of snow for the season.

  7. Everett F Sanborn

    I have always enjoyed these photos of the Red-tailed pair building their nest. As they get to the incubation and finally the appearance of a nestling or two I hope the weather is really good for your photography efforts.
    Excellent photos.

  8. What a handsome team! I wonder if ( pre-egg laying ) adults spend
    their cold overnights in the nest they’re building ? The shed feathers
    would be a comforting addition and would help keep them warm……

  9. Michael McNamara

    That first one is a gem. What a beautiful pair of RTs.

    Recently returned from 5 days in New Mexico. There was a pair of Coopers Hawks building a nest in a tree in the middle of the retreat center. Their efforts were halted by a unexpected snow storm. Back at home a Allen’s Hummingbird nest building was interrupted by one of our exceptional rain storms we’ve been having. This has been a trying year for some; humans and wildlife (and photographers) alike. I wish them all good luck.

    • Michael, with all the snowstorms and squalls going through here in the last week I keep wondering how these to hawks are doing with their remodeling project. I’ll have to check on them again, soon I hope.

  10. Gorgeous shots. It’s rare to get one with both male and female and nest all in the same shot so I’d count that a real coup. Nice bit of “environment” there too.

    • Granny Pat, I was surprised by how hard it was to get photos of them both on the nest, at least good ones. Neither one of them dallied for long while they were on the nest.

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