Carson's Nest

It is definitely breeding season. Aldo the American Kestrel is always showing off his nest to anyone that walks by, bowing and trilling loudly. But Carson the Red-tailed Hawk is the less ostentatious of the two. She quietly works on her nest, one stick at a time. 

In the wild, Red-tailed Hawks build sizable nests by stacking sticks up to 6.5 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. Carson doesn't have access to so many nesting materials, but I provide her with a handful of sticks every spring. (Without these provided materials, she dismantles her perches to use creatively instead!) 

Carson spends considerable time moving and arranging these sticks. Sometimes I find a haphazard pile on her highest shelf perch. But her favorite spot seems to be the back corner of the mew on the ground. There she has plenty of space to perfect her nest with carefully placed sticks and even sheets of newspaper that she drags over. 

I always feel bad destroying her hard work on cleaning day. When possible, I leave her nest corner untouched. But on particularly messy days, I clean up the wet newspaper and poop, then distribute the sticks around the mew so she can start again. After one recent cleaning day, I found the neatest nest foundation I'd seen from Carson: an almost perfect circle of sticks. I can only imagine what it would look like if she had an unlimited supply!