The little ones are starting to figure out how to feed themselves and fly with some finesse.   However, there is always one or two who can’t leave their mother alone.

In our neighborhood we have the crow family with 3 babies.  One of them is the biggest whiner.   He cries and cries and cries.   I can hear him first thing in the morning begging.   He just never gives up.   Mom is so disgusted she keeps deserting him with his siblings and he crys so much they fly away.

This morning she couldn’t quite get away from him even by perching on a little birdhouse.  There he is hugging close hoping for a meal.

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The other baby birds I saw this weekend are two Cooper’s Hawks.   Or maybe one was the Mama but I think because they are both so light in color & streaks on their chest they are probably siblings.

They were both in the maple and fir trees in Fauntleroy Park.  I had gone to a corner of the park I hadn’t been to in a long time.  Usually in the summer this area has lots of stinging nettles along the trail plus since it is a less used area spider webs strung from side to side.   Nothing freaker than getting a web in your hair & finding the spider hanging off your arm.   My method is to have a 2 foot stick and wave it in front of myself.  That gets most of the webs as I walk and when I come to nettles that are overhanging I whack them down. I was doing pretty good at this and came to top of the hill.   I started hearing birds crying back & forth.  A sort of whistling sound.

Landing on a branch right in front of me was this little Hawk.  Wow!!   Not every day you get to see them that close.  I got this picture to share with you.

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Then I saw the other hawk on a limb of a dead tree.  So, to get a better view and picture I went on down the path.   However, I wasn’t as diligent in my stinging nettles eradication and got it on the ankle and elbow.   Dang that stings at first and if I could have found a dandelion I would have put that white sap from them on it.   Not to be distracted I got the camera out & got this picture.   See how light this one is and the how the streaks go all way to his chin.  That tells me it is a Coopers versus a Peregrine Falcon or Merlin.    And that is a sign that it is a young bird.

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Footnote:   My memory of how bad nettles are was over rated.  The sting pretty much went away except a slight burn on my elbow.   Maybe as summer goes along they get weaker or this cool summer we are having  in Seattle made them not get to full power.