Out of town for only a week, we missed the coming of age of those two baby hawks -- blogged here and here -- we've been doting over these past few weeks. They grow up so fast. Here's the word from the folks at MIT's HawkCam:
The young hawks have left the nest for good, and both have been seen around MIT, honing their flying and hunting skills. We will be updating the website with final archive videos and other information as time allows. We hope for a repeat of this wonderful opportunity next year.
The Red-Tailed Hawk Page suggests what our fine feathered friends may be up to these days:
How long does it take them to learn to fly?
When the eggs finally hatch, the baby hawks are born altricial, or completely helpless and dependent upon their parents. Within a month, however, they are fledgling (fully feathered), and within 45 days they start going on solo flights.
When do they start hunting by themselves?
When they can fly well enough, the young fly after their parents while they hunt. This teaches the young how to start fending for themselves. After two months of this, the parents start weaning their babies, they stop bringing them food and hunting for them, so that the young hawks must hunt on their own to get food to eat. By then, the young hawks become completely independent of their parents.
It seems only yesterday they were downy babes waiting for Mom and Dad to bring home the prey, tear it into bite-sized pieces and "hand feed" the mewling maws. Sigh.
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