It took public outcry, a high-profile public relations firm, and an architect, but the two red-tailed hawks who lost their nest at the Upper East Side and became a symbol of nature’s vibrancy in the city are coming full circle.

The spikes holding together the nest of the avian couple, Pale Male and Lola, will be re-installed at the Fifth Avenue co-op that removed them a week ago, negotiators said last night. That should make it possible for the birds to weave their nest anew on the building’s 12th-floor cornice.

After meeting with officials of the national and local Audubon societies, the architect for the building at 927 Fifth Ave., Dan Ionescu Architects, has come up with a plan that includes restoring the crucial spikes and adding some sculptural tubing designed to keep the nest, which was 8 feet wide when it was dismantled, from falling.

Today the building will erect a scaffold and, pending receipt of a permit from the Department of Buildings, the manmade habitat for the hawks could be up and ready within 48 hours, the executive director at New York City Audubon, E.J. McAdams, said.

For even the youngest students of architecture it is an elementary lesson: The birds’ nest works because it is simple.

In this city, where nothing comes easy, however, returning the spikes that held the nest together has been complicated and costly. It has also been an unplanned fund-raising bonanza for the Audubon Society. Now, fans of the hawks can set their scopes on the nesting site – not the co-op board had ordered the removal of the nest.

Meanwhile, Dan Ionescu Architects and the firm’s contractor can move on to other projects, as can the public-relations powerhouse Rubenstein Associates. The firm has been on retainer for the co-op’s management company, Brown Harris Stevens, for more than 10 years. Mr. McAdams said the co-op will incur the cost of putting the spikes back, though both the local and national Audubon groups offered to pay.

The public outcry over the nest’s removal, which led to “tens of thousands of dollars” in donations to New York City Audubon, has created ample assets to work with. The support led the National Audubon Society to set up its Red-tailed Defense Fund. A petition on its Web site garnered more than 10,000 signatures and the office has received about 4,000 letters of support – as well as scores of new members.

“We’re not happy this happened, but we are happy that people became a little more aware that there is wildlife in this city and that the wildlife needs someone to speak on their behalf,” the program director of New York City Audubon, Yigel Gelb, said.

If many sympathizers contributed money, others, such as Andy Wist, have made in-kind donations. Mr. Wist, who runs a roofing company in the Bronx, offered to rig a scaffold to the building and replace the spikes, pro bono.

“I’m not a bird-lover or a bird-hater,” he said. “I just think something like this is terrible. New Yorkers should help New York here.” Brown Harris Stevens has, however, already made other plans.