Sunday, July 26, 2009

365 Theme 132: Growing

June 28th. A pair of coopers hawk chicks in their nest at the Rancocas Nature Center. Note the white feathers.

One of the chicks exercising its wings.


July 3rd. A week later and we start to see the brown streaks on the bird's breast and the brown feathers on the wings. Heads are still downy white.

There are actually three chicks. The nest must be getting a bit cramped.


July 19th. Two weeks later and the chicks are in their juvenile plumage, brown streaked beasts, brown wing feathers, and brown heads.

And they've begun "branching", wandering short distances out form the nest. It won't be long before they take flight.

The next time I visit I doubt they'll be there.

7 comments:

terricreates said...

Great shots, and its really interesting the progression each time you were there. Great job with the timeline, were you camping out under the tree? Just kidding. If only you had the "bird's eye" view as they grew.

Great job!

Chesney said...

What a great series of photos, I felt like I watched them grow up, it will be sad when they fly the coop!

Anonymous said...

How wonderful to offer chronological photos of their infancy to flight. Nice sharp photos. Good view of the nest too. Very interesting. Anything about birds interests me. I never stopped to contemplate how large they really are when they leave the nest. Great job.

jo said...

That's a terrific set of shots!

Ron a.k.a. Danudin said...

A month in the life, but just as you get used to them they are gone, ah Life, great series Thank You.

Anonymous said...

What a treat to see this series, lucky you and now us! So nice.

lijola said...

Wonderful!!!! How lucky you are to be able to witness this. We had a Harris' Hawk the other day and at least 6 Mockingbirds were giving him pure h**l. We watched for about 20 minutes before he flew into a wooded area across the street. Unfortunately, photos in our yard didn't come out due to the trees blocking much of the action.