isaacgreen.org / Red-tailed Hawks in Grace Church, Charleston, SC

April 2008

April 29

US Fish and Wildlife visited Grace Church again and found that there were at least two chicks in the nest! Work has been suspended on the upper parts of the scaffolding for about eight weeks . See some photos from the USFWS visit provided by Grace Church here. Grace Church has taken a very positive very of the situation even though it is costing them a fair amount of money. I am told the hawks were the subject of this past week's Sunday school lesson!

April 28

Below is a photo taken from the same area I've taken tons of other photos of the nest, but it is now blocked by scaffolding.

April 25

No photos from today. I have not made it downtown because I spent the last two day putting two little Eastern Screech Owls back with their parents, but I have been informed that US Fish and Wildlife has visited the site. They are waiting until the scaffolding is up to make a determination if there are eggs or babies in the nest. I personally I can't believe there aren't, but now we just have to wait.

April 23

The nest could be in serious trouble. The construction crew has started putting up more scaffolding. John tells me the plan is to go up perhaps taller than the nest and then I've sent off urgent emails to everyone at the Center for Birds of Prey and Melissa Hughes, the resident ornithologist at the College to please help. They are going to contact South Carolina DNR and US Fish and Wildlife to make sure that construction crews do not disturb the nest. I am still very worried. When I was over there this afternoon, the birds looked agitated and were flying around some of the construction workers. A strong thunderstorm came through this evening, and I hope they were back on the nest by then. Below are some pictures of the work.

April 16

I manged to get some much better photos of the other RTHA who hangs out in the tree. He flew out of the tree right as I arrived, but I managed to get these as he circled before flying off. I think he might have spotted me, what do you think?

April 7

Thanks to a construction worker, John, that I me while taking photos, I was able to located one of the favorite hang outs of the RTHA not on the nest. It is a large pecan tree on the other side of Coming Street. The light was horrible, but here he is in his tree.

April 1

One bird is always on the nest these days. I suspect they are on eggs. The unfortunate part about being hunkered down on the nest is that there usually aren't good photographs to take. All you see is a flash of head or tail through the sticks. I got lucky with my timing today -- one of them was out around the cross. I also went up to Hampton Park where another pair of red tails have nested in the past. Their nest is active too! I should probably put that on another page, though!

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