This morning on the Red tail hawk nest on the Fernow Light Box in Ithaca, New York, the first hatch of 2021, K1, fledged. It was one of the best leaps of faith I have seen in a long time. That happened at 8:27:31.
No sooner than K1 had fledged than the team from the Cornell Bird Lab went up in a bucket truck to rescue K2. Indeed, the fledging of K1 was perfect as the staff had decided that K2’s health was not improving and they needed to take her into care.
Here is the official video of that rescue:
Watch the reaction of K3 at the end! This went so smoothly. No falthy fledge from K3. Thank you everyone!
K3 just teased everyone. We are told that Big Red and Arthur’s kids fledge before noon or after 4pm. They like their afternoon siesta and K3 was no exception. He taunted the camera operator into thinking he was going to go and then would lay down and have a rest!
There was a lot of scratching about on the ledge above and K3 was listening and watching everything.
Despite settling down rather comfortably in that egg cup – seriously K3 rubbed its breast just like Big Red does when she is incubating or brooding – K3 knew someone was about.
Guess who it was? K1. K1 flew back to the nest to join K3. Fabulous effort.
They had diamonds sparkling all around them. You can just imagine K1 telling K3 how much fun it is to fly and showing him the landing spot he is going to take in the morning.
One of the most fun things that the fledglings do is play soccer with the pinecones. It really helps them with strengthening their grip – who said you had to go to a gym!!! Talon strengthening for prey. Amazing.
Hopefully tomorrow K1 and K3 will be out having fun over on the Fernow Lawn across the street and flying to the top of Rice to get prey drops from Big Red and Arthur.
Thank you for popping in. I knew you would enjoy seeing K2 getting rescued. The poor little thing. She was just too sick to put up any fight. Let us all send warm wishes for a quick recovery.
Thank you to the Cornell Bird Lab for their streaming cam where I took my screen shots.