Paletta Park, Burlington, ON. May 10th. 2021. I’ve been watching a pair of young Red-tailed Hawks who, within the last day or two, have made the jump, leaving their ungainly lump-of-sticks nest (which I thought was home to squirrels, but apparently not) and taken flight. They are hanging around the park, building strength and developing flight skills and I have to say they are doing a masterful job of it. I watched one riding the gusty north-west wind, wheeling and banking with apparently little effort. They vocalise loudly, a scratchy, drawn-out keee-errr, perhaps the avian equivalent of ‘Look at me!’ as they make high, wide circles within a few hundred metres of home. They usually end flights coming to rest not too far from the nest, not unlike human adolescents when you think about it. This will go on for a few days and other than flight training they will remain fairly sedentary though they may chase their parents and beg for food. The parents know what’s going on and will deliver food, commonly dropping it nearby. It will take two or three weeks for them to develop the strength and skills necessary for sustained flight.
As I left to come home in the reddish light of evening they were moving closer to the nest, perhaps there’s some security to be had there. I took a few photos and thought how, despite a spring day with a few new migrants, these two Red-tailed Hawks were more exciting to watch and cheer on, making them My Birds of a May Day.
