A weekend-in-review update:
All four eagles are relatively inactive these days in the punishing heat. A-16 (Orange) and A-17 (Pink) fly confidently but minimally, returning to the hack platform late each afternoon for food and water. They remain near one another most of the time: on Friday afternoon, A-17 followed A-16's movement very closely in the high shady forest northwest of the platform. While meddlesome A-17 prefers not to be bored, brooding A-16 prefers not to be crowded--and so the two would erupt from time to time in brief bouts of reptilian hissing and bickering as A-17 pushed the limits, and A-16 reset them.
Meanwhile, the two females--A-15 (Blue) and A-18 (Green)--passed much of the weekend in stillness. Bohemian A-15 lingers happily at the hack platform, consuming great heaps of trout daily and wallowing periodically in the shaded water tub. A-18, until Sunday morning, favored a tree near the edge of Inwood's marsh directly downhill from the hack site. Sunday afternoon, she moved low along the shore northwest, toward the Hudson River. When she had attracted a crowd there around 3pm, we made the decision to capture and relocate her.
Hack projects like this one require that we minimize human intervention in the fledglings' natural progress while securing their health and safety. In an urban park on a busy Sunday, with rising heat and the persistent threat of dehydration, it became imperative to remove errant and inexperienced A-18 back to the protection of the hack site, with its fresh water and food. Upon placement in the hack box, which we briefly closed to ensure she would feed and drink before departing again, A-18 promptly gorged herself on a two-pound striper and bathed lavishly--a process she has repeated each day since, alongside the other three.
While the eagles have caused intermittent excitement up at Inwood in recent days, they have passed much more of their time doing what eagles do best: sitting still and quietly in trees. And as the heat wave continues, we expect a great deal more of the same.
All four eagles are relatively inactive these days in the punishing heat. A-16 (Orange) and A-17 (Pink) fly confidently but minimally, returning to the hack platform late each afternoon for food and water. They remain near one another most of the time: on Friday afternoon, A-17 followed A-16's movement very closely in the high shady forest northwest of the platform. While meddlesome A-17 prefers not to be bored, brooding A-16 prefers not to be crowded--and so the two would erupt from time to time in brief bouts of reptilian hissing and bickering as A-17 pushed the limits, and A-16 reset them.
Meanwhile, the two females--A-15 (Blue) and A-18 (Green)--passed much of the weekend in stillness. Bohemian A-15 lingers happily at the hack platform, consuming great heaps of trout daily and wallowing periodically in the shaded water tub. A-18, until Sunday morning, favored a tree near the edge of Inwood's marsh directly downhill from the hack site. Sunday afternoon, she moved low along the shore northwest, toward the Hudson River. When she had attracted a crowd there around 3pm, we made the decision to capture and relocate her.
Hack projects like this one require that we minimize human intervention in the fledglings' natural progress while securing their health and safety. In an urban park on a busy Sunday, with rising heat and the persistent threat of dehydration, it became imperative to remove errant and inexperienced A-18 back to the protection of the hack site, with its fresh water and food. Upon placement in the hack box, which we briefly closed to ensure she would feed and drink before departing again, A-18 promptly gorged herself on a two-pound striper and bathed lavishly--a process she has repeated each day since, alongside the other three.
While the eagles have caused intermittent excitement up at Inwood in recent days, they have passed much more of their time doing what eagles do best: sitting still and quietly in trees. And as the heat wave continues, we expect a great deal more of the same.
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