A really nasty thunderstorm passed through this afternoon, but we emerged merely wet. So we went to Alewife for groceries — and Red-tail hawks!
When we got there, there was one last young hawk (or eyass to be technical) still in the nest, Lucy, with a small crowd of people watching her. I got to take a look through the telescope trained on the nest, and I could swear she got a look straight back at me through the lens. They know we’re watching them, and considering how much she was preening, I think she knows just how beautiful she is, too. The pictures I took don’t do them justice, but it’s a lot easier to get close to a bug than a hawk.
I learned that the second oldest male, Lucky, had just fledged earlier today. (The oldest, Larry, fledged a few days ago.) Lucky hadn’t gone far, and it was easy enough to find him by the second crowd of people watching him. They were all worried about how he was doing after getting soaked by the storm that had just passed through. He opened his wings a couple times, as if he was trying to dry out, and he probably wasn’t crazy about the renewed showers.
That rain gave us an excuse to stay put in the Trader Joe’s, especially since you could see from the front door — one guess — a hawk! I’m not sure which one. he was definitely eating something. Maybe the father, Buzz, as he apparently likes sitting on the CVS sign. Maybe Lucky again. Or Larry. And maybe Buzz or Lucy had brought him a snack to tide him over through the rain.
All I see through the rain was — it’s a hawk!
Writing Every Day 