Reader Lois M. has a very special treat for us: Three adorable Red-tailed hawk chicks that you can watch live in the nest with their parents right now! Here’s Lois with the deets:
Here’s a picture of the three newly hatched Red-tailed Hawk chicks on the Cornell Campus in Ithaca, New York I took this morning via the night-camera. Mom (Big Red) was off the nest for a few moments so I took advantage of the time. One was hatched on Monday (4/29), the 2nd on Wednesday (5/1) and the third on Thursday (5/2).
Dad is Arthur. He is an excellent hunter and keeps his family well fed. He occasionally ‘babysits’ while Big Red takes a well–deserved break. This is their second year together.
If anyone is interested in watching this beautiful pair raise their family, this is the link to the nest. ENJOY!!
Much sleepingks is being done at the moment.
I’ve just been watching for a few minutes and it’s so cute! A parent is pulling pieces of food from some kind of animal and feeding the chicks. Now they chicks seem to be napping. I don’t know enough about birds to know which regurgitate food to their chicks, but these don’t seem to be doing that. Such good camera quality, too.
Looks like it’s lunch time.
Oops, now mom appears to be settling in on top of the chicks.
Love these cams. Thanks Lois and Mike. I am seeing the mom settling on top of the chicks too.
Thank you, Mike, for posting my info on the Red-tailed Hawk family so quickly. It’s been a joy and pleasure to follow this family since the cameras were installed in 2012. There have been many joyous moments with them and several sad ones also. One of the previous fledglings got caught between the power lowering window on the top of the greenhouse and the rest of the window and had to be rescued because it broke his wing. Fortunately a group of fellow hawk followers were there that day for a hawk celebration and brought him to the veterinarians right away. Unfortunately, his wing didn’t recover enough for him to be released back into the wild. He’s now part of their Ornithology department and makes visits to the various exhibits they put on each year. His name is E-3.
We were also devastated when Ezra, Big Red’s former mate, was found dead in the spring of 2017. He may have collided with a window which so many birds are killed by doing. We feel that Ezra found Arthur and sent him to the campus that fall as Big Red began being seen in his company for the rest of the year. Last year they had bonded and started their own family. It’s surprising Arthur seemed to know exactly what a male Red-tailed Hawk needed to do to be a provider, a guardian, a prolific mate, and how to care for chicks without anyone having to show him how. He was still only in his first year of life because he didn’t have his adult red tail yet. They molt their juvenile tail in their first molt in their second year and get the beautiful red tail of an adult. If Ezra had still been around, he wouldn’t have been able to stay in the area as Ezra would have chased him off. They’re very territorial. But Big Red accepted him as she sensed Ezra wasn’t going to return to her. We all wondered if all would go well with a new male and all that’s needed to raise a family. Big Red taught Arthur a lot of adult red-tail details about how to build a nest (they used one that she’s used before) so they just had to collect more sticks, pine greenery (to ward off bugs), and gather bark for the nest cup to make a soft bed for the babies. He just seemed to already know to just what was needed and when. That’s why those of us who follow them said Ezra had to have sent him and gave him the necessary skills needed to succeed with all that’s necessary to raise a family.
So please enjoy watching the family raise those soft, fuzzy bobbleheads and how quickly they grow into beautiful birds of prey right before your eyes. Fledging is another milestone that causes people to hold their breaths as they have to learn how to fly safely and how to hunt on their own. The parents will continue to feed them off the nest (or sometimes they will fly back to the nest to eat or sleep) until late fall when most juveniles will leave the area. The parents don’t migrate and stay right there to keep watch over their territory from year to year.
There are several people who follow the hawks all over the campus talking about them, providing live camera videos, and showing us the continuation of their life in the wild. Here is the link: https://livestream.com/karelsedlacek. The couple who do this are Karel and Cindy. They’ve followed the family since 2012 and are a wealth of knowledge about them. They also follow a nest at Syracuse University. Many take their lunch hours to follow the family when the chicks have fledged and are learning how to be an adult hawk.
So tune in to them and learn all about this beautiful family. You won’t be disappointed. Plus right now there’s also a group of ‘Hawk Chatters’ that you can ‘talk’ to in real time following them for most of the summer at certain times.
Yes, I’m definitely a Hawkaholic BIG TIME!!!
ENJOY,
Lois M.
Lois, I love all these details and backstory. I’m the same way about rescue kittens cams!
Thanks for all the details.
It’s fascinating following this beautiful family. For creatures who can’t talk, don’t read, never went to school, have to ‘live off the land’, etc., they are SOOOO smart. It just amazes all of us who follow many animal cams to watch their lives that they are such intelligent beings using only their innate knowledge. We had no idea how Arthur would get on with Big Red last year since he was only a year old and had no experience at being an adult male hawk. We were in awe watching him helping with nestorations of the existing nest and followed Big Red’s lead in what branches to break off and bring to the nest and where to place them when he got back to the nest or that they needed tree bark in the nest cup for a soft place for the hatchlings to rest on or that they needed evergreen branches to help keep bugs off the nest or how to mate and if he was fertile!! He proved he knew how to do all of it and then some. He knew he had to provide meat for Big Red and then the babies. Those poor voles didn’t know what hit them when he started hauling them back to the nest so they could be fed to the little ones. How did he know to bring small foods in the beginning and then move on to bigger prey??? As little appetites grew to bigger ones so did the size of the food supply in the pantry!!
We love the fact that many teachers know about the nest cams and make watching them part of their educational programs. What better way to teach children to protect wildlife than watching them raising their young? If we don’t teach them about wildlife conservation, there will eventually be no more wildlife for them to enjoy except in zoos. The children then get their parents interested in putting out bird feeders, having water available for birds/animals, growing flowering plants as food for butterflies and their babies and the list goes on.
One of the hatchlings got caught somehow on Big Red’s foot or something this afternoon and was pulled out of the nest but somehow Mom managed to get it back into the nest as she knew it didn’t belong where it was. That must have been scary to watch happen. I couldn’t find a video of it. There is someone watching the nest all day and most nights whether it be in the Ornithology department or Keys (a fisherman who has a boat for hire and lives on it in Key West, FL) who watches at night and lets us know what’s been going on.
Hopefully many of you will continue to watch the nest as it’s so fascinating to watch those beautiful babies grow and flourish thanks to such great parents. We applaud when a chick fledges and worry when something not quite right happens. I’ve learned so much about bird life in the years I’ve been watching this nest. There are also other cams you can watch. Just click on a link at the top of the link I sent in my first message to go to them.
Take care,
Lois M.
Thank you very much Lois! There is a group of red tailed hawks that I assume live on the Wells Fargo building here on the corner of Burnhamthorpe and Central Pkwy here in Mississauga. I get stopped at that light facing west every time I head to my sushi spot on the way back home and love to see them circle and circle; it is one of my favourite ways to wait for a long light to change. I would love to see the nest action up there. Thanks again for the details and great education!
So glad all of you are enjoying reading about and watching this beautiful family in action. I love sharing information about them and the other locations Cornell has installed cameras in. They provide so much insight into what it’s like to raise their families against odds they face all the time. Those of us watching the hawks get so excited when we see successful matings, hatchings, fledgings, capturing prey as a youngster, and even migration. It’s always sad to see them leave the area but we know they’ll find their own territories and continue reproduction. Looking forward to March each year when the cycle starts all over again gives us hope of a new year of watching the nests. Yes, it’s very addictive but in the best kind of addiction!! 🙂
Lois M. sent me this photo last night: A lucky daytime glimpse of a hawk chick who appears to be as surprised to see us as we are to see it.