Chick Flicks

For the last two years during the month of April, we've shared photos of the red-tailed hawk chicks and great horned owl chicks in nests within the Preserve's Core Habitat (an area that is off-limits to the public to provide a refuge for wildlife). This year, with our new digital video camera, we now have some short videos to share!

The first video is of the three red-tailed hawk chicks with their mother - after she stops looking annoyingly at me (even though I'm several hundred feet away!) she continues to feed her chicks. Keep an eye out for the two chicks in the back that appear to be fighting over the leg of some unknown small animal that is now their lunch. The second video is of three great horned owl chicks and their mother - toward the end of this video, the mother moves away from the chicks, and two of them try to awkwardly follow her.

As you will see, the owl chicks are much larger than the hawk chicks, and are closer to the size of their mother, whereas the red-tailed hawk chicks are still very small. That is because great horned owls often lay their eggs earlier than other raptors, which means they hatch sooner, so they are more developed at this point in time than the hawk chicks, which likely only hatched a few weeks ago. The great horned owl chicks will soon be losing their fluffy white feathers, looking more like mom and dad, and start walking out onto the branches of their nest tree. Hopefully more videos to come!