Big news this week: Here you see Ricky starting to helicopter off and above the nest yesterday; he loved it so much that he practiced most of the morning in a brisk southwesterly breeze.
He sometimes achieved a height of about 25 feet above the nest. His mother, Harriet, seemed unimpressed, but his siblings, David and Lucy, paid close attention.
It wasn’t always smooth going, especially his landings into a nest filled with his scurrying family.
In fact, it got so bad – his big wings flapping to take off and his sharp talons coming down – that Harriet left the nest for long periods. She returned once with some sod for a little home decorating.
Below you see David and Lucy with Harriet on the right. (Note the bronze-colored eyes on the youngsters and the yellow eyes of their mother — one of the ways to tell juveniles from adults when the youngsters get as big as their parents.)
Ozzie, his father, flew by once and apparently decided that he wasn’t going to try to land in the nest while it was an emergency landing zone. The family did not get excited when they saw him, probably because it wasn’t lunch time yet.
(Brooklin, Maine)