Urban Hawks has confirmed that Christo and Dora have at least one kid up in their nest in Tompkins Square. In this video taken on May 1, you can see a fuzzy white baby head bobbing around. Time will tell if the nestling has any siblings.
With at least one hungry youngster, the hawks have been busy with feedings. On Saturday, I caught them engaged in some interesting teamwork. Christo perched on the edge of the nest and tore up food, which he passed over to Dora. She, in turn, fed the little one(s) down below in the bottom of the nest.
I've never seen them work together this way and they kept it up for about 15-20 minutes.
When the feeding was done, Christo went off to fetch some food for the adults. He dove down to the ground on the east side of the park...
...and lingered a bit in some wildflowers.
I thought he'd caught something fresh, but Christo popped up with an old leg o' rat.
As he flew past me...
Christo took the rat leg back up to the nest.
Dora, who'd been flying around stretching her wings, came swooping in. It's hard to see in the photo below, but her talons appear to be just about to grab Christo's back as he's bent over in the nest.
The hawks keep the nest clean by removing old food and eating it elsewhere, so Dora took the rat leg and flew it to a nearby tree to have her dinner.
Christo stretches after a busy day hunting and feeding his family.
I'll end with this photo as it show's Christo's near perfect symmetry and his beautiful tail.
See many more recent hawk photos on my Flickr page.
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