Hawks and Storms

My coworker and I were looking at the red-shouldered hawk couple with the nest in our courtyard. We both noticed they looked rather bedraggled.

We wondered whether the recent rather bad storms had caused the missing wing feathers we could easily see. The other possibility would be they are molting.

Sure enough, hawks molt beginning in spring and continuing through September or October! I also found that the word for replacing the feathers in a bird is spelled either “molt” or “moult.” I didn’t know that.

So, I’m not sure whether they got storm damaged or are moulting. They still fly just fine. And we THINK there may be babies in the nest, but we can’t see them. We just saw an adult act like he or she was feeding.

And that’s the hawk news!