Extraordinary egg production in the Bronx

Chick #1 in the Fordham nest
Photo by Rich Fleisher

A few days ago I forwarded a letter from Chris Lyons to John Blakeman. It told details about a pair of red-tailed hawks, Hawkeye and Rose, who have nested for the second year on the Bronx campus of Fordham University. Three chicks have hatched there, with one egg left unhatched. Like the Pale Male & Lola's nest, this one was built on a ledge with anti-pigeon spikes at its base.

John Blakeman responded:

Marie,

I, too, followed the developments at the Fordham nest. Nothing I've learned seems out of place, except to have four eggs. In the East and Midwest, four are almost never produced. These are sometimes seen in the West, where inordinate numbers of easily-taken ground squirrels are encountered. Ground squirrels aren't nutritionally much different from Norway rats, as it happens. The Fordham pair must have been feasting on urban rodents. Egg production is almost always directly correlated to available prey. The adults are an older, experienced pair, so everything fits.

It would be very interesting to closely study the eyass rearing techniques of the Fordham pair. Feeding three eyasses to fledging size can be taxing as the birds attain fledging size. Each bird could easily consume two rats a day, as could the adults. That's 10 or more the pair must capture each day. It would be a delight to watch this. I hope hawkwatchers there are able to post detailed observations.

The photo of the nest shows rather conclusively, I believe, that the pigeon spikes there are much shorter than those at 927 5th Ave. Also, they appear to be very thin and might have been easily pushed over when the parents built and lined the nest.