It has been a difficult few weeks for downtown Holyoke’s resident Red-tailed Hawks: one of this year’s brood was killed in traffic days after leaving the nest, and another was picked up by animal control after well-meaning folks seeing it struggle during its early flights reported that it was injured.

The third may still be somewhere in the neighborhood, but I haven’t been able to locate it; this one seemed to be a very strong flyer right out of the gate.

There’s a bit of good news, though: the little hawk that was believed to be injured (pictured above, on the morning after fledging) is in the care of Tom Ricardi, and will be released to the wild in August. Ricardi said the bird is doing well; as I suspected, it hadn’t been hurt at all — it was just a particularly clumsy fledgling.

One of the fledglings from the 2014 brood takes flight behind my building, June 28.

I had the good luck to observe it on the morning after it left the nest. The previous evening, June 27, I’d received a text message from my downstairs neighbor, who said one of the young hawks was on a sidewalk near the nest. I explained that was normal behavior, and that the bird would find a secluded spot to roost for the night.

The next morning, June 28, the hawk was hanging around the back door to my building. I watched it as it hopped on dumpsters and parked cars, taking short flights from the roof of one vehicle to another. It was a Saturday morning, which meant there was less foot traffic at the bus station than during the week — still, the hawk was drawing the attention of many people. Some were worried it was hurt; others just wanted to snap a cell phone pictures.

I eventually had to leave and, when I returned later in the afternoon, I couldn’t find the hawk. I went out again the next morning, and for several days after, scanning the rooftops and alleys. It was gone. I was worried that it, too, might have flown into traffic.

Eventually, I thought to check the police department’s call for service log, where I found an entry logged just before noon on June 28 at the bus station — the morning I’d spend watching the young bird.

“INJURED HAWK,” the entry read.

That meant, most likely, that police responded and called animal control. And that meant, most likely, that someone would call Tom Ricardi.

I caught up with Tom yesterday morning when he gave one of his presentations at the Village Commons at South Hadley.

I asked if he’d taken in a fledgling Red-tailed Hawk from downtown Holyoke on the last Saturday in June, and he said he had. All told, about five fledgling Red-tails from this year’s nesting season, taken in from Chicopee, Agawam and Holyoke, are in Tom’s care right now.

“When people first call I always tell them to just leave the bird alone,” Tom told me. “But someone always picks it up.”

It’s a message he tries to convey during his presentations: if you find a young animal, you may do more harm than good by picking it up and trying to care for it. Ultimately, they’re learning to survive — and being young, vulnerable and out in the world is a formative part of the process.

“If you care, leave it there,” he tells his audiences.

Below, more images from the morning after the hawk fledged: