Welcome to the Swainson's Hawk Watch

May 15, 2015 - A pair of Swainson's Hawks have been mating and building a new nest in a different neighborhood tree. I will try to start adding a few new 2015 photos of this pair as the summer progresses. (Scroll down on this page to see the 2015 blog posts in chronological order.)

July 3, 2015 - Sadly, the 3 chicks have fallen out of the nest and perished. This blog chronicles activities around the nest until this tragic event, with the July 3 post below the first you will read.

Note! These and additional photos (total = 154) are viewable in this Swainson's Hawks blog 2015 Picasa Web album.

Archive, May 2014 two Swainson's Hawks have been mating in a tree about a block from the old 2010 -2011 nest site. I have not seen them in a nest yet but have seen them mate three times in the same tree over a two day period.

Whenever possible I will try to post photos on this blog again this year, especially if we can identify the nest site where we can see the chicks growing and fledgling. Note! See the first photos below on the May 5, 2014 blog post below.

Archive 2010 & 2011.
In April of 2010, a pair of wild Swainson's Hawks decided to nest in our neighborhood in Boise, Idaho. This "Hawk Watch" will attempt to record words and photographs describing the Hawks behaviors, including the hatching & fledgling of chicks over the spring and summer. Many others who live in the neighborhood also watched the daily activities of the hawks and used this blog to keep up on my own observations and photographs.

Note! May 6, 2011 Two Red-tailed Hawks have settled on the old nest and appear to be laying on eggs now. See blog posts below. Here is a link to 56 Red-tailed hawk photographs from 2011 I uploaded to my Picasa Web Album.

Note! On March 12, 2011 two neighbors reported seeing a single hawk flying around and landing on the nest. Hopefully they will nest here again or nearby and we can continue the blog through 2011.
Note! Please Try to "Follow" the Blog and check in often. I am trying to update this site and the photo album at least once or twice a week. This page scrolls down to the blog entries below this introduction. The first blog entry you will see is the latest one. Scrolling the page down will reveal earlier posts in descending chronological order. And/or you can use the Blog Archive on the right side of the screen to see entries for May, through October 2010 and newer ones for 2011.
Please feel free to share this Blog with your family and friends. The URL you can email to them is:
http://swainsonshawkwatch.blogspot.com

Note ! I am posting "all" of the hawk images to an album in my Picasa Web account. Below is the web URL for that album. You can click on that hot link and/or also click on the Hawk lifting off branch photo to go to that album. As of October 3, there are 600 individual images in the album.

Note! When looking at a single photo in the album use the "full screen" icon for a larger, more impressive size!

Hawk lifting off branch

Thursday, July 9, 2015

July 3, 2015 Sadly - Neighbor reports that chicks fell out of the nest.

Because I had not seen any activity in the nest for a few days I went around the block to the neighbor who has the yard the nest tree was in.

As soon as I mentioned that I was monitoring the hawks he said that all three had all fallen out of the tree one by one over a period of 2 days.  When he found each of them they had already perished.  The first one was the smallest and the last one was somewhat bigger with feathers that were starting to turn grey.

For more than a week I had been worried that I had not seen the male hawk flying around or bringing food back to the nest.  Earlier I had seen him doing this and thought it was strange.  It was also interesting that the female hawk would leave the nest often.  I thought she might be going after food, but every time I saw her she as bringing leaves back to the nest.  This behavior started when the air temperature began to get close to the 90s.

It was really sad to learn that these 3 young chicks could not survive to adulthood where we could watch them flex their wings and learn to fly.

I have posted a few of the photos I shot on this blog to document activities I saw around the nest during the weeks from mating until now.

However, I have also posted additional photos for a total of 154   of the Swainson's Hawks from 2015 in a this Picasa Web Album link. 

Enjoy the blog posts below for 2015 and others in past years as you scroll down.  And please send comments if you want.


1 comment:

  1. Big loss for the parents and a reminder how tough it is out there in the wild.

    ReplyDelete