Did you ever look at something for years, knew you knew it, and understood it? And then look at it again and know that now you really know it and understand it quite differently?

Redtails are beautiful. They have been for decades. For millennia. I knew it. Hopefully you knew it. Adults are particularly beautiful. Juveniles not nearly so. Generally, juveniles are a flat gray brown. Their tail is a flat to reddish brown, thinly banded. Their belly bands are highly variably from a relatively thin belt of light vertical brown streaks to a cummerbund of heavy, thick, dark brown blobs. They are not colorful. They are not elegant. Their eyes are a rather pale yellow like... Well.... Their underwings are a little spotted and streaked, accompanying the dark comma at the wrist and the flat brown patagial marks. The underwings look a little messy, like most things juvenile in any species, including human, and a weak, indistinct bar outlines the trailing edge of their wings. Immature Red-tails are designed to NOT attract attention. To not really be noticed by anyone or anything. (And to many parents, not heard.) They may be really cute and adorable when very young, but they become somewhat less attractive and interesting as they grow older. They are "tolerable."

In fact, they grow a bit less attractive as they complete their first year of life. When they start to molt, it looks as though their feathers can't wait to fall off the "teenager." Multiple primaries and rectrices are missing, raising doubts as to the bird's ability to even fly. The contour feathers raise questions about the health and viability of this strapping kid. The bird looks like it is wearing braces, a retainer, and a bad case of acne, and a shirt and pants that are each about four inches too short. In other words, not particularly appealing. What adult would want to mate, or feel threatened, by that? Juvenile Redtails are also naïve, innocent, and non-threatening, whether we are talking about territory or a mate.

Over their second summer, they either begin to need a training bra and their eye lashes start to lengthen or their voice and more starts to drop a little. Hair starts growing in new places. They begin looking more mature and, over time, more beautiful with each passing day. It may be a year or two before they either attract or find a mate. Their second year they often retain some of their old, worn juvenile feathers, contrasting with their new, fresh, brighter, richer feathers, as though they are wearing a truly rag-tag coat.

Adults are really quite different. They are a rich reddish brown dorsally, warm and deep. The tail is a bright, deep orange-to-brick red. I am reminded of a bright piece of Cornelian, which in the rich low light two months on either side of the winter solstice, looks much deeper than it is long or wide. In rich November or February sunlight shortly after dawn or as the sun sets, the rich red tail assumes an elegant, almost satiny appearance. It becomes a jewel, a beacon and a warning. It is meant to attract members of the opposite sex and warn members of the same sex. You see an ADULT here. A full adult, rich in experience and knowledge, and able to meld that with its speed and daring, as in the male, or heft and strength as in the female, to be a formidable creature to defend and maintain. That tail tells all; you are dealing with the real thing here. This is serious business, whether sexually or territorially.

The white ventral parts of juveniles are a dull, flat white. Used to help camouflage the bird, not highlight it. The white breast and belly of an adult is a rich, deep refrigerator white, meant to reflect dawn's first rays and the last rays before dusk. It is a dual-purpose white. In sunlight it is a beacon, advertising the presence of an adult, looking for a mate or defending territory and perhaps a mate as well. As a winter Redtail sits high on the southeast side of a tree to be out of the freezing wind from the north and soaking up the rich warms rays of the morning sun that drives away the killing cold of the night, you can't see it's tail, the beacon that works best aloft, in flight. But when you see that rich warm bright white breast and belly, any sentient Redtail knows it is dealing with an adult, with surer instincts and a knowledge base of years of encounters with other Redtails and other challenges. Fresh plumage on an adult often has a light, delicate ochre patina, an accessory to highlight the outfit. The breast and belly are not all brash and bluster. The breast and belly are rendered softer and more elegant by delicate vertical sepia streaks and occasional anchors or arrowheads. They are delicately barred and streaked with "olive brown, dusky brown, or warm sepia" or even "pale hazel." The bold, bright red and white state and threaten. These incredibly small, elegant markings are meant to advertise and attract. They are exquisite, rendering each bird an individual.

The technical description in the Birds of North America account struggles with adjectives and a color palette far beyond my ken to describe the richness of colors in an adult Redtail. "Light morph with upperparts, including the head, auriculars, occiput, nape, scapulars and interscapulars margined with cinnamon-brown (33) to russet (34), these edges broadest and most conspicuous on the nape and anterior interscapulars, which are more uniformly fuscous than in Juvenal Plumage (above); forehead generally whitish; upperwing coverts hair brown to dusky brown (19); lower back and rump somewhat paler, rarely hair brown washed with rufescent; uppertail coverts variable, whitish washed with cream (54) and buff (24) to nearly solid robin rufous (340) and more or less barred with cinnamon-brown. Retrices hazel (35) to cinnamon-rufous narrowly tipped with whitish and crossed by a subterminal band of sepia; the subterminal band variable from nearly absent or incomplete to complete and as much as 13 mm in width. Primaries and secondaries hair brown to grayish, the outermost two primaries (p9-p10) broadly tipped with sepia and remaining primaries barred fuscous along inner webs (not contrasting substantially with pattern of secondaries)..." (BNA account)

Realize, I am talking only about so-called typical "ordinary" Redtails in New England, without addressing the rich panoply of colors and plumage on the species across our continent. I have not even addressed the differing shapes and tones of malar bars, subtly masked by the cheek and head color, or the highly variable patterns of coloring on the throat.

I write this because this past week I saw Ruby, my favorite local female Redtail, looking as or more beautiful than ever before. It was partially the light at this time of year. And it had to be partially because she is now probably five years old. It is a mature beauty, born of experience. It is an incredibly elegant beauty, and it is hers and hers alone. To think there are actually people who walk by, look for a fleeting glance and say, oh, it is just another Redtail, without stopping to appreciate this jewel in Cambridge. I write this because I also saw an intruder. An adult. Almost certainly a male, much smaller, with a much lighter face and a slightly more prominent belly band surrounded by a larger bed of extremely fine delicate red barring on the breast. This is no local but a wintering bird, who has been working Discovery Park for at least a week. For reasons far too long and complicated to discuss here, he has been tolerated in or laid his claim to this territory, rich in cottontails and presumably in voles and mice as well. He, too, is spectacular when seen well.

Moreover, this winter I have seen more Cooper's Hawks locally, and seen and photographed them far better than I ever have before. I have been unimpressed by the appearance of the juveniles. The large females, the smaller, more delicate males; the dull brown dorsal color and the thin vertical streaking on the breast are nothing to write home about. These are also juveniles designed to blend in, to be hidden, to not threaten any adult Cooper's territory or mate. They are flat-colored a lighter, dull gray brown to be as invisible as possible. To hopefully beat the odds and survive over a long, cold, lonely winter.

As in the Redtails, adult Cooper's are an entirely different story. I've seen thousands of Cooper's Hawk, primarily in flight on migration. The number of adults I have seen well when perched is certainly in triple, not quadruple, digits. The past three weeks, I have seen three adults extremely well repeatedly for long periods of time. This was due primarily to the fact that two of the birds had recently fed extremely well. They did not want to move. One had swallowed a "grapefruit,", its crop so distended that the bird did not want to take wing. (Prey was likely a squirrel.) A second adult had also eaten with a normally full crop obvious shortly after dawn. It was so content and sedentary that an incredibly naïve and just plain stupid juvenile squirrel climbed up the tree in which the bird was perched, and ventured out on the branch on which the predator was perched. The Cooper's looked on incredulously. A great meal was being delivered just after you had had your Thanksgiving banquet. The Cooper's eyes but not her talons followed the squirrel. The squirrel retreated before reaching the bird, and worked its way down the tree, no doubt having no conception as to how lucky it was to be alive.

But what has impressed me is how awesome those adult Cooper's Hawks are in December. The blends of deep rich dark blue, soft delicate gray and crisp black , contrasting with the bright but narrow red barring on the breast and belly are indescribably beautiful and for me all-too-rarely seen. But I think that they, like the Redtails, may be more beautiful now than at any other time of year. It is not that there just is far less vegetation to hide them. That they are more exposed. It is that they ARE more beautiful now than ever before. Both species molt during or immediately after the nesting season. You know the wear and tear of taking care of three hungry youngsters at a time. Ask any parents of triplets. No, you don't even need to ask them. Just look at them. Cooper's molt primarily in "the fall." Their adult breeding plumage is fully attained by now. They really ARE more beautiful now than at any other time of year, and in the most flattering light.

This sudden awareness had me thinking (dangerous). It is generally assumed in the literature that Red-tailed courtship is primarily in February and March, the weeks prior to nest building. About the same — a little later -- for Cooper's. But these birds look more beautiful now than they will in March. Their plumage fresher. Does it not make sense that this is so because they are actually making or re-cementing their marital bonds at this time of year. I KNOW this is true for some Redtails. Buzz and Ruby often act like courting teenagers during the winter, though not in the harshest conditions of the season. They perch together, often briefly at dawn. They carry sticks to and work on one or more nests over the winter. They soar together in courtship-type flight. Buzz captures and brings food to Ruby. Or that, more precisely, is what Ruby expects. Remember this is an "old" mated couple, having raised nine young together. It now seems as though when Buzz captures a squirrel or a meadow vole, Ruby EXPECTS him to bring it to her. That does not always happen. At times she waits patiently, in sight at some distance. After a while, her patience wears thin and she flies to her mate. Occasionally, he takes off leaving the remains for her to eat. On at least two occasions, he has left with his prey in his talons. Have you ever heard a Redtail swearing a blue streak?

Traditionally, the literature has said or suggested that breeding adult raptors migrate separately in the fall, winter separately, and arrive back on the nesting territory separately and at slightly different dates in the spring, where they reaffirm their bonds. But discussions of wintering and migrating Bald Eagles have increasingly raised the concept of adults migrating and wintering together, (and some mid-latitude birds not separating or migrating at all). And of subadults picking out mates on the wintering grounds, where there are more possibilities to choose from and longer time in which to choose and establish bonds. It makes sense, but it is difficult to document and prove. Radio-tracking adult pairs will make this much easier to determine. Could this be true for Redtails and Cooper's and perhaps many other hawks as well? Could Cambridge be the "Cancun" of Cooper's Hawks, where you can meet an attractive potential mates and conceivably hook up together long term? The more I think about it, especially in the context of peak plumage, the more sense it makes. Something to think about while you're stuck in Christmas traffic.

Best,

Paul


Paul M. Roberts
Medford, MA
phawk254@comcast.net