Life seems rather mundane for Buzz and Ruby these past two months. They frequently roost together or near each other at night, and when they do not roost next to each other, they often meet on a favorite perch at the crack of dawn. Buzz has tended to fly to 545 Fresh Pond Reservoir Place at dawn, to hunt and possibly to “show the flag,” as he perches very prominently on the corner, visible to all raptors flying by. Notably, he can gaze across the Hotel Tria and Fresh Pond Mall and see if two adult Peregrine Falcons are up early and posing a potential challenge if not a threat.

Most days the adult male Peregrine is up at the crack of dawn even earlier than Buzz, on the southeast corner of Rindge #3. But unlike the little ball of hate, he rarely strafes the mall for pigeons, or hunts in the mall period. In fact, he usually flies east within moments of dawn and finds small avian prey, which he eats while prominently perched on the tower. The adult female Peregrine is much larger, and usually does not appear up and active as soon as her mate, but she spends most of her time on a different tower and hunts primarily to the north, seeming to concentrate more on pigeons. Just over two months ago she was routinely taking pigeons to feed her three young, especially the two daughters. (Dad appeared to have taken his only son off to teach him how to hunt smaller, faster prey.) Mom had been incredibly successful, seeming to take a pigeon shortly after dawn nearly every morning and having her daughters Big Bertha and Little Bertha, find and devour it. On August 1, Mom grabbed a pigeon that was fleeing her south down Rte 16. She carried the pigeon to the west side of Rindge #2 (R2), but did not begin plucking or eating it. She carried it around R2, apparently looking to find one or more of her offspring, who for the past several months had been screaming, no, SCREAMING for food from Mom and Dad. She had been very effective when the family moved to Rindge Avenue, bringing pigeons and other prey in for them. She could hear those two big females screaming, “I’m Hungry, I’m HUNGRY” probably half a mile away. We could hear them screaming a quarter mile away or more, though my hearing required me to be somewhat closer.

Now, there was no one there to take the pigeon and rip it apart. The kids had definitely dispersed. Mom and Dad were on their own now, just like Buzz and Ruby. At 7:35 a.m. Mom began plucking the prey, and she was still feasting on it when I left forty minutes later. Life was good.

On September 2, Buzz began breaking off branches on Fawcett Street and carrying them into Nest #2, the pine near Ruby’s beloved blue spruce, that had been brought down by Hurricane Sandy a year ago. Buzz and Ruby had begun a nest in the pine in 2011-2012, but they had not used for actual nesting (yet). Ruby was in the nest arranging sticks. Nest# 2 is visible from the CVS west side parking lot. The view is very limited. Ruby has been seen in the nest intermittently over the past eight weeks, working briefly in dawn light, but I’ve not seen Buzz bringing in new sticks for quite a while. Nest #2 can be seen from Buzz’s perch high on 545 Fresh Pond Reservoir Place (FPRP). At times Ruby joins Buzz on 545 and then flies directly towards the nest, but terrestrial observers have to move a considerable distance to have any chance of finding her in the nest, and usually can not get there in time.

Sadly, far fewer people are out looking for or reporting Buzz and Ruby sightings. The inveterate hawk watchers, who have provided many invaluable reports over the past three years, have become rather “veterate,” going out rarely and reporting even less. Random but very helpful reports by others have also declined, with the notable exception of Mark Resendes, who over the past several months has begun reporting Buzz & Ruby sightings, primarily during the day as he often works in the area. The random reports may be dramatically fewer in part because it seems increasingly difficult to find Buzz & Ruby during normal daylight hours. They are keeping a low profile. Most of my highly irregular mid-day visits, I rarely see ANY raptors. The dearth of reports from others obviously reduces our knowledge and understanding of what Buzz and Ruby are doing. Over the next several months we should see more wintering raptors moving into or through the area, so any reports are welcome, whether posted on 185 or sent to me personally. Remember, last year we had two Barred Owls appear in November and a beautiful adult Redtail move into Discovery Park and environs, and at least two immature Cooper’s Hawks sought prey in Buzz and Ruby’s territory. (In fact, Sunday morning I had a Cooper’s Hawk fly out from Concord Lane and do a loop around Buzz, who was perched on 545, checking him out as a threat to the Coop’s clear pigeon hunting in full view of him.)

Both Buzz and Ruby were molting in late August, when we last reported. Ruby had joined the witness protection program for much of her molt. She appears to have finished her molt, which makes her look somewhat different. Her breast and belly are slightly more heavily marked, but what is more noticeable is that she has lost all the blond highlights on her head. For a year the sun, wind (and maybe some lemon juice or Lady Clairol) had bleached her head feathers much lighter, as though she had added blonde highlights. The paler head made her malar bars (cheek or rouge patches) look much darker and more obvious at a distance. Now you cannot rely on finding a Redtail with blonde highlights around Fresh Pond Mall. You need to look for that crisp, white throat. If she is with Buzz, she is noticeably larger, too.

Buzz has not yet finished molting. In fact, his head looks as though his bottle of Grecian Formula expired before he began using it. His head is still a little ratty looking; no crisp, clean, young and smooth feathers. Therefore, he doesn’t look as sharply dark as he used to. At least one of his tail feathers in still coming in.

It is much, much more difficult to track flight feather molt these days because most sightings in the past two months have been before sunrise or shortly thereafter, and I cannot recall seeing either hawk soaring at all, allowing time to observe and photograph wing and tail molt. What flight has been observed is low, point to point, following the contour of the landscape. I have not seen a display flight since the day that Buzz returned from Grafton. Is it that Buzz and Ruby are an “old married” couple and don’t bother with all the “showy crap?” They know where they stand with each other? Or is it that Buzz is older and perhaps not 100% recovered? I’ve learned it can take a while for older critters to heal and recover their energy. Or is it that most every morning, Buzz sits on 545 and looks north into the eyes of a large, powerful, skilled adult female Peregrine Falcon and the smaller, incredibly fast and agile tiercel? Is it that Buzz knows that if he starts making territorial proclamations, he is risking a major confrontation with one or both of those birds, a fight that he knows from experience he cannot win? I don't know the answer, but Buzz is a survivor. He knows not to risk life and limb in futile fights.

Another factor, a change from the two years of the nest of 185 Alewife Brook Parkway, is that the nest being worked on this year is hidden. There is no need to call attention to that nest because it is can be difficult for most avian threats to discover it. The 185 nest, by contrast, was obvious to most every bird and driver on Route 2/16, and he felt the need to establish clear claim to what everyone could see.

Buzz and Ruby have been very low key. Hunting rats and small rodents at dawn, and now perhaps moving a little more to pigeons. Most of their morning hunting flights the past several weeks have been to the east, towards New Street and Bay State Rd. They have perched up on billboards across from the Columbia Construction site on Concord Ave., and points east. This is hopeful, because there are a ton of pigeons that roost along New Street. Buzz has even perched on top of a double-billboard that shelters a nighttime roost of dozens of pigeons, sort of like the Red-tailed Hawks in New Mexico that perch outside a bat cave waiting for bats to exit.

Intriguingly, this shift to the east comes at the same time that the Vineyard Fellowship Redtails, which perched daily for hours on the Vineyard Fellowship church on Rindge Avenue, stopped perching there regularly. (You’ll remember that when Buzz was released at Danehy in June, he flew east into their territory and they chased him back.) Buzz and Ruby rarely perch on Social Security or Raytheon anymore.

This shifting of hunting areas is probably related to two factors. One, the desire not to keep harvesting prey in the same spot. Give the small rodents and rats a generation (a month or two) to keep population levels high, and encourage a more stable source of food throughout the challenging winter. Also, pigeons have stopped breeding (mostly) and are flocking to winter roosts. (Sunday, however, I had a male pigeon aggressively courting the smaller female, without apparent success.)

Concentrations of pigeons are developing at various spots. The pigeons that roost under Mt Alewife (the bridge) and on New Street now fly to TJ Maxx and the chimney on New Street first thing in the morning. They DO NOT fly to and perch on the CVS sign the way in which they did for years. Perhaps several years of raids by two Redtails and a Peregrine have prompted a change in behavior (or all the pigeons that did perch there have gone to meet their maker). That thought became questionable this morning when about fifteen pigeons from Concord Lane landed on the CVS sign, the largest assemblage seen there in many months.

Notably, we have seen very little conflict between the mated Redtails and the mated adult Peregrines. On Monday September 10, at 7:01, Buzz landed on Cambridgepark. Suddenly, the male Peregrine, who had been perched on Rindge 2, flew west and began dive-bombing Buzz, swinging up and down in a flight like hummingbird courtship. He was screaming and very intimidating, doing things in flight that no Redtail could ever hope to do. Ruby was perched on the building beneath Buzz. Buzz moved closer to Ruby, but the male Peregrine continued swinging like a pendulum, screaming, coming close to the much bigger male Redtail, but not striking him or extending talons. Buzz took off and flew towards Route 16 and then circled back towards his perch. The tiercel continued to harass and scream. I was observing this from a car in traffic, and was forced to move before seeing the dénouement. All I can say is that I have not seen Buzz or Ruby perched on that building again in almost two months.

I have not seen direct confrontation like that between the two species since then. I’ve had the male falcon shoot down east of New Street past a perched Ruby, whom he totally ignored (and vice versa). A week ago I was walking back to my car in darkness at Fresh Pond Mall as the first pigeon flock of the day emerged from Mt Alewife, wheeling around to land on TJ Maxxx. They were just over my heard when I saw a much bigger pigeon joining them…Ooops, female Peregrine striking the flock in the first rays of light. This was maybe 10-15 feet over my head. The pigeons scattered. The female peregrine missed everything, wheeling around and returning to her perch high on Rindge 1. Two weeks ago I was walking down New Street when I spotted both peregrines, male in front, hell bent for leather, flying southeast into a huge fog bank. They totally ignored the Redtail perched nearby. (About three weeks ago I had my first Common Raven in Fresh Pond fly within feet of Buzz perched on 545, croaking but otherwise ignoring the buteo.

With the exception of the story above, I have not seen the Peregrines or Redtails hunting much in Fresh Pond Mall. It is as though the area between Staples and TJ Maxx is a demilitarized zone. Buzz and Ruby hunt from Whole Foods south, east. and west. The banks of the Little River and Discovery Park have apparently been available. The Peregrines hunt primarily to the east and north of Rindge Towers and, importantly, often far beyond the boundaries of our favorite Redtails. Occasionally one or both Peregrines will perch on the radio transmission tower off Bay State Road, and less frequently, Buzz or Ruby will perch there. I thought that the buteos did not perch there when they see the falcons perched high on the cliffs of Rindge, but I was proven wrong when Buzz perched low on the tower this week while the male Peregrine was perched at the closest possible point on Rindge 3. Buzz was very alert, like he had had a nearby Starbucks Double Espresso. I think he was clearly calculating the positions of and trajectories for the many Rock pigeons in his purview, but I had the clear impression he was also focused on the two beady eyes of a falconid a quarter mile away. That's one of the advantages of having 300 degree peripheral vision. If that falcon moved, Buzz’s radar would pick it up.

On October 21, I was climbing Mt Alewife shortly after dawn. Buzz was perched on the NW corner of 545 FPRP, making a statement and observing. Not directly hunting. Ruby was not seen. I walked to look to see if she was working on the nest, but no, she was not there. I started walking towards Cambridgepark when I spotted a large hawk perched on the SW corner of eastern Archstone. It was BIG. I thought it must be Ruby, who I have not seen perched around there for four months. I walked to the west of Archstone, and then back to the southeast to try to get a better view. In the faint light of early dawn, the hawk looked big. Solid. Not slim, not broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted. I could not make out a tail, much less see any red. The shape was more like that of a dark barrel. No mottling or marbling was evident on the back – no creamy jet-puff marshmallows floating in the cocoa – which you would expect to see on the back any Redtail. Was this perhaps a roughleg migrating through? But no long tail was evident. And this bird was not slim, trim. This bird was a hunk. I was still trying to determine how it could be Ruby when it turned and raised its wings as it lifted off the building. The female adult Peregrine Falcon. That was only the second time I’ve seen her perched there in four months.

“Winter Tails” should be arriving now. In the past week, several thousands Red-tailed Hawks have migrated past Hawk Ridge in Duluth, Minnesota, on the western tip of Lake Superior. Last week at Plum Island, Massachusetts, someone photographed a western-type Redtail, believed to be from northeastern Canada, where some western type Redtails are found, with a dark hood and throat (like Buzz) but also with a burnished copper breast over a heavy bellyband that includes dark horizontal barring. You should start seeing Redtails posting up along the sides of interstate highways, establishing winter hunting territories, or just passing through. Peak Redtail migration is from mid October to late November, and increased winter movement may be evident if and when there is a heavy snowfall west and north of the city.

Two events the past two months seemed to encapsulate life for our pair of Redtails, and for their Peregrine neighbors. On Sunday, September 8, an overnight rainfall was ending as the clouds were being sucked east over the ocean. Dawn was a crease in the sky as 10 pigeons emerged from the bowels of Mt. Alewife. I spotted the female Peregrine on the east side of Archstone (the first time). At 6:27 the male Peregrine came ripping through the Summer Shack lot east of Archstone and landed on an air conditioner on the penultimate floor of Rindge 1, second window down from the north. At 6:40, the female Peregrine took off from Archstone. exploding northwest in attack mode. Because she is so much larger, her wing beats are notably slower than those of her much smaller mate. I saw her again at 6:43 and then at 7:05. At 7:08, she was on SW R1. At 7:15, she stretched her wings out as if she was about to kite, – for fifteen seconds – but then she stooped sharply into Danehy. At 7:17, she was back on SW R1. The male was on the NW corner of R2, and both could see Buzz on the NW corner of 545. At 7:20, I saw the male Peregrine on the west center of R2, with small avian prey that he was holding on the roof with one leg. He was eating, or at least plucking it. Two minutes later he carried it over to the east side of R1, Four minutes later he hopped north with the prey, until he was on the NE corner, opposite his mate. At 7:40, the female was flushed from the roof by another hawk, which we thought was a kestrel. The female landed on NE R1, near the male, and came walking towards him. He flew with some of the prey, but she also appeared to have part of the prey in her talons and flew to SE R1, and then flew back carrying the partial prey to NE R1. The male retreated under the HVAC on NE R1. at 7:52, the female flew with her food. At 7:58, both took off and perched on the north roof of R1 east of the stairwell.

At 7:58, the female took off and flew to NE R1. Two minutes later, the male joined her, and they started playing tag. The female began running along the roof towards her mate who had just landed. They were both very vocal. The female ran along the wall, flushing the male, who took off, sortied out and wheeled back, landing on the HVAC. His mate hopped up to a vertical pipe cap on the north edge of the roof. Suddenly, all was quiet, as the birds remained sitting there. Buzz, meanwhile was still sitting on 545, NW, where he could observe much though not all of the antics between the two falcons. What did it all mean? Damned if I know, but this was one of the few times I have seen any such interaction between them. Obviously, she did want her mate to give her some (all) of the food that he had caught. He did share, but it clearly wasn’t the first thing that had occurred to him when he brought the food in. I’m inclined to think it was an important moment in the bonding between the two, who have been mated for only one breeding season. They were very successful, with three kids fledging, but this is the time of year where reassurance from your mate is important. It will be tougher to find a good mate, a good provider, in the depths of winter, when one faces greater challenges, and if you wait to spring, the odds are even more challenging. Your mate needs to show continuing commitment, to reassure the female she will be fed when she is on the nest, incubating, and then caring for voracious chicks.

On October 3, I experienced something similar in meaning, I believe, for Buzz and Ruby. It was 100% clear at dawn, with no wind. Buzz and Ruby both flew in to 545 at 6:27. It was still quite dark, but as I was walking along Rte 16, a Redtail had moved to a lamppost on Rte 16 and then flew low, right over my head to land in the rat ranch. The hawk grabbed a small, (young) rat, which it quickly took to the roof of Sleepys on the west side of the highway and began to eat. Ruby flew to the lamppost in front of T Mobile and looked eagerly at Buzz. There was no questioning her meaning. She wanted him to share his repast. No sign of any response from Buzz, however, who played it cool. Looking longingly towards Buzz, Ruby then flew to Sleepys roof, landing next to her mate. Buzz took a step back from the edge of the roof but continued to tear at his prey. At 6:34, Ruby gave up and flew to the southeast corner of the Tria. She then flew to a tree in the rat ranch, sitting about 12 feet above maybe half a dozen young rats running around in the shadows. At 6:45, two tribes of pigeons emerged from the shadows of Concord Lane, one of 12 birds, another of 50. Ruby flew to the roof of Whole Foods, facing from whence the pigeons came. At that point, I looked quickly at photos I had been taking. My Nikon P510 megazoom (42X) has incredibly good light gathering capacity; better than my eye. Looking at the photos, I learned that Buzz had indeed taken the rat and flown to Sleepys, but that when Ruby had flown to the lamppost and then next to Buzz and his rat, they had stepped back from the edge and that Buzz had given up his rat to Ruby and it had in fact been Buzz that had flown back to the rat ranch and Whole Foods, Ruby was eating the rat on top of Sleepys! In fact, Buzz got a second rat from an area to the east by 7:00 and was up on the lamp by Cambridge Wine & Spirits eating the new rat. Ruby flew from Sleepys to Tech Fusion with her rat, and both Redtails, mated for four years, ate their rats together, on posts only yards apart. It was a very heart-warming moment.

Before examining my photos, I had thought that Buzz had ignored Ruby’s obvious desire to share food with him. The photos revealed that he had indeed been very sensitive to her concerns, and had given her his food and gone off to find more. Buzz was a good provider, concerned for the welfare of his mate. This was a small but important gesture, indicating his concern for the welfare of his mate, and his ability to provide them both with the food they needed and would need in the short, cold days ahead, and after the sun started shifting back northward again, when breeding season would come again.

Late fall might seem mundane for Redtails that are not migrating. That are staying put on territory they will be utilizing when they start copulating shortly after the SuperBowl and incubating eggs before baseballs start flying in Fenway. Research shows that successful, experienced mated raptors are much more likely to be successful in years ahead, and to produce many more young than do newlyweds, or even than long-mated birds that occupy marginal territories. Fresh Pond Cambridge is valuable residential territory. Just look at the expensive apartments being constructed within a half mile of Fresh Pond. These hawks know what they have.

Dawn is later with each passing day, and dusk earlier. Hours for hunting are dramatically reduced, and potential prey is less and perhaps more challenging to capture. Both pairs of hawks, the Peregrines and the Redtails, are cementing their relationships for the cold, dark months ahead, building for success when the Daffodils bloom.

Two notes. New photos of Buzz, Ruby and the Peregrines can be found at my Flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/30136859@N06/sets/72157627784588301

Second, those who contributed to the Animal Rescue League or the Tufts Wildlife Clinic in Grafton will likely receive end-of-year solicitations from both organizations. Please consider another gift to either (or both). Remember, Buzz would not be alive today – nor would many other raptors and other wildlife – were it not for the selfless work of both organizations.

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