4 Red tail hawks in one nest?

On the highway I travel to work every day on there is a tree with a nest that always has 4 full-sized red tail hawks in it, they have been in there for at least a month now, and there was 2 there in the spring building the nest. I've searched for this behaviour on google but can not find anything on red tail hawks nesting together.

Last night I went out to get a picture but the sun was directly behind the tree not allowing for a great picture, I'm gonna head out today and hope to get close enough with my 70-200.

I have seen 5 in the tree at one time, 3 in the nest and 2 others perched on the top.

Anyone know if this is common? Am i mistaking them for this years young? I wouldn't think they would be this big this early in the year.


Thanks,


Leigh.

Hi Leigh- That was my first thought that you were looking at fully-grown young in the nest with maybe one or two adults. Red-tails lay 2-3 eggs and occasionally 4 so there can be a lot of young in the nest at once. Young ones differ in several ways from adults, but an obvious one is the lack of a brick-red tail.

I get pretty close yesterday and it would appear they are in fact young ones, I am just surprised how big they are already. Crazy.