Cherish is my favorite word, and I cherish the ability of turning the routine into a beautiful moment.
Nature creates in me, a spiritual and meditative time to bring peace, harmony and balance, into an otherwise ordinary day~
Mary Howell Cromer







Monday, June 20, 2011

Another Failed Nest~

This is beginning to get very hard to take, and yet once again, I must. 
 
Five weeks to the day since the nest was completed and brooding began for second Red-shouldered nest attempt of the season.  After the first young ones were born at first location and died possibly of pneumonia, following 3 to 4 " of rain fall the day prior, it appears the second nest has failed as well.  Yesterday morning 65 ph winds and heavy rains kept me from viewing the nest site.  Yesterday afternoon, I could easily see the male on the nest and heard the female in the distance, coming closer and so I left.  This morning, I had to be in Louisville and could not check, but went around 1:30 and there was no adult on, or near the nest tree.  I have gone back twice since, and nothing is going on there.  Thus my heartache is heavy this evening, yet I accept nature as it comes, hard as it is.  This is the first year in the past 6 years that will not produce at least one young.  The images are my favorites of the hen taken during this now brief season.  I always enjoy spending time near her and then I also always know it may be my last season with her and I cherish the moments~
 
 




Yelling for a meal to be brought in.  She will perch on nest a long time and when hungry, I call it her making a chumping sound, and then when he does not bring it right away, she gets off of the nest and perches and really yells out her hunger, or need for a rest.  The male has been really great at doing his part with brooding time on this nest, which is not always the case~




I included the one at the bottom because it makes me smile.  I had been taking photographs and the gentleman next door had been cutting his grass, when it backfired and startled the hen momentarily~

 

5 comments:

  1. Mary,
    Such a shame, but likely natures way of putting things into balance. perhaps next year they will have a really good year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, you certainly got those, excellent and pretty.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Super shots of the hawks Mary. It is so sad, but as you have realised 5 out of 6 years is a good average from a nest exposed to all the elements of nature and productive enough that they will be back, again and again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope you don't start to be desperate about these failures... Here almost no birds except the mallard, swans and some waders have chicks yet... The arctic tern did not even start to mate!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nature is wonderfull...but hard to understand sometimes! Anyhow, the images are pretty like usual. Let's hope next time will be the good one ;)

    ReplyDelete

I enjoy each visitor to "Red Shouldered Hawks of Tingsgrove and Beyond" I truly appreciate those who have become followers to my blog and really am encouraged by the wonderful comments.
FYI if you leave ANONYMOUS comments, they will never get published, so please don't waste your time.

Thanking you~