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This is a late afternoon portrait of "Monday," one of the 2016 Eakins Oval chicks, taken in March 2017.
I watched her grow up in the nest on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. When she fledged prematurely on June 6, 2016 ("Monday") she was unable to fly and very unlikely to survive the four-lane traffic that is the Art Museum Circle. So we grabbed her and took her to the wildlife clinic at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. When her flight feathers had fully emerged a week later, we brought her back to the Oval where she spent the rest of the summer with her two siblings, learning to hunt on the Art Museum grounds in the care of her capable parents, "Mom" and "T3."
To everyone's delight, she showed up not far down the road at the John Heinz NWR in the fall, where she spent the winter and early spring, feeding on squirrels and voles. I spent many hours following her around the woods of Tinicum Marsh. The cool thing was that she would just as often find me as I'd find her. She moved on some time in April. Hope you're doing well!
"Monday" by Christian Hunold, on Flickr
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