Swainson's Hawk Watch: Female Hawk Teases Young Hawk with Food To Get Them to Fly

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.

http://picasaweb.google.com/gogrimm/SwainsonSHawksNesting#

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

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Female Hawk Teases Young Hawk with Food To Get Them to Fly

On Saturday morning, July 24, I saw the female hawk fly around with a rodent clearly visible in her talons. She would land in the nearby tree where one of the young hawks was perched. The young hawk would get excited and try to hop from branch to branch to get closer to to the food. Suddenly she would take off with the prey and fly around again and land again. Soon both young hawks were in the tree trying to get closer to the food. But she would just fly off again. It appeared that she was trying to entice the young hawks to fly. I never did see her give the food to either of them. Meanwhile, the male hawk came flying by with visible prey in its talons. One young hawk took off after him. There was a lot activity with the hawks today and I have uploaded about 4 dozen new images similar to the ones below to the photo album. This is a link to the Swainson's Hawk Album that now has 461 images.

The farmer has been cutting the hay field about 5 blocks away. As he mows, rakes and bales the hay over the next week or so, mice and other rodents are easier for the hawks to see and catch. Possibly the adult hawks are trying to entice the young hawks to fly over to the hay field to learn how to hunt for their own food. I will try to capture photos of this process if I can.