First glimpses of Amelia & M2's offspring

As noted last week, the Tompkins Square red-tailed hawks have three chicks. This will be the first family for our new male this year, and it's Amelia's eighth season raising chicks in the park. To date, they all look to be doing well.

Looking back, this was my first glimpse of one of the chicks on April 28. All the photos below were taken from an extremely far distance with a telephoto, and have been heavily cropped.

Two little heads are visible in front of Amelia in this shot.

April 29: One chick can be seen looking up at Amelia while another looks over the edge of the nest to the right.

One little face is barely visible.

May 1: Amelia feeds three chicks. The third is barely visible between the other two on the left.

One stands up:

Mouth open:

There's a little wing!

May 7: It's a dark and rainy day, but Amelia can be seen feeding two of the chicks.

May 8: Two faces are clearly visible in front of Amelia while the third lays low to the left.

The chick on the left stands up to reveal its whole body, but one of the others goes down, so there are still only two visible at a time.

Finally, three heads at once!

As the chicks grow, Amelia will spend more and more time out of the nest. Here she is taking a break with M2 on the cross of St Nicholas of Myra church on Avenue A (Amelia is on top).

M2 is quite a different personality than his predecessor, Christo. I'll write more about that later in the season after we get to know this new male better. In the mean time, he is being a good provider, bringing meals for his chicks as well as Amelia. Stay tuned...