Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 16:25:58 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Walter Ellison Subject: Re: Hawk Nesting Question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, I considered replying "off list", but some of these answers may be helpful to atlasers and other birders. My check of the egg date information in the "Yellow Book" indicates there are only two candidates for a hawk on a nest in mid-April - not counting Bald Eagle and Osprey because neither of these are the culprit. These are Red-tailed Hawk and Red-shouldered Hawk. Red-shoulders tend to nest deeper in the woods and in smaller trees than Red-tails but there is overlap in nest sites. For both species incubation takes from 33 to 37 days and the young do not leave the nest for another 45 or so days - so expect them to be "tied" to the nest for about two and a half months. There is a fairly lengthy "brancher" period of a month or more when the young hawks don't fly well and frequently come back to the nest to be fed and to roost. Clutch sizes in Red-tailed Hawk are usually 3 sometimes 4, and in Red-shoulder usually 3 often 4, however clutches of 2 eggs occur. Try to be unobtrusive and circumspect around the nest, you do not want to be the cause of an abandoned nesting attempt. It would be wonderful to be able to map this nest (once you figure out the species) for the atlas project. I would appreciate it if you could share the location of the nest with Montgomery County Coordinator Jim Green or you could send the details of its location to me off-list. Nice find. Good Birding & Atlasing, Walter Ellison MD-DC Atlas Coordinator - MOS 23460 Clarissa Road Chestertown, MD 21620 phone: 410-778-9568 e-mail: rossgull@crosslink.net "A person who is looking for something doesn't travel very fast" - E. B. White (in "Stuart Little") ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Dunne" To: Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2003 2:30 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Hawk Nesting Question My wife seldom accompanies me on my weekend morning birding outings, but the past 2 times I've had pleasant surprises. The first was last year when she and I found the immature White Ibis at Black Hills park. Yesterday, we were there again. We had been listening to a number of Piliated woodpeckers carrying on, when she noticed a hawk in flight through the woods. She then saw it land into a nest! We kept studying the nest, which is fairly high up, from views at various places around the nest. All we could see was a brown head occassionally pop up, then back down. So, no ID today. Here's my questions: - Would this hawk be laying at this time of year? - How long would I expect to find them in the nest? - How many fledglings would you expect to find? I normally take this same path every weekend and plan to make this a fun study for myself. Thanks for any input. tom. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================