Homage with Paul Roberts Flickr photos

Sadly, the Buzz and Ruby era as we knew it has come to an end. I believe that Ruby is deceased, that she passed away more than a week ago. There is no conclusive proof, but I am certain. Buzz is certain. The corpse of an adult Redtail was found near the nest tree, but we cannot absolutely confirm that it is her. A necropsy will be performed to see if the cause of death can be ascertained.

This is a preliminary report. I have not had time to transcribe all my notes since March 21. That will likely take 10 or more hours of work, which would delay this report for at least several days. I will transcribe those notes and provide a corrected, updated report later.

There was understandable excitement when Ruby was found incubating on March 8. There are at least three spots from which you can clearly see the nest, but you really needed a scope to be able to see if a bird might be sitting low in the nest. And it quickly became clear that the nest had been built up, so that it was often difficult if not impossible to determine if a bird was sitting tight (low) in the nest. You could confirm a bird sitting only on a nest exchange, when one bird flew in and the sitting bird got up and flew out. All the views are limited, virtual tunnel vision, so you have to watch the nest almost continuously so you do not miss the very low key nest exchange. (The incoming bird flies in low, well below the horizon and swoops up sharply into the tree, right at the tree itself, so other predators and bipedal mammals have a very limited opportunity to actually see it. The departing bird parachutes out of the nest and flies low, beneath the horizon to the same effect.) Thus, it was very challenging to confirm incubation.

A little after a week, I began to question if they were indeed incubating regularly. I am accustomed to seeing Ruby explode from the nest, shortly after dawn, to quickly void after spending as much as 14 continuous hours on the nest. Usually Buzz would relieve her early but if he did not she would dart from the nest, go 50+ yards away where she would void, and she would immediately loop back and return to sitting; and give Buzz a very exasperated look when he finally showed up to relieve her. (She doesn’t want to void near the nest because predators, such as raccoons, weasels, etc., could use the excrement as a clue to the nest’s presence and take the eggs. The accumulating whitewash left by chicks in the nest - or later over the edge of the nest – and decaying prey remains dramatically increase the vulnerability of the chicks in the nest as they grow.) I saw very few nest exchanges. Sunday March 16 at 7:28 a.m. we had Ruby fly into the nest, look down at Buzz, and take off. At 7:30, Ruby relieved Buzz. At 7:46, Buzz left the nest with Ruby sitting tight. At 7:50 Ruby left the nest and flew to the Honey Locust and Buzz resumed incubating. At 7:56, Ruby left the honey locust and replaced Buzz on the nest. It was a little weird.

Watching the nest closely meant that you could not see much of anything else because buildings block your view of most hawk activity. I stopped watching the nest because I was not seeing any signs confirming occupancy and incubation. Both might be the case, but I was not seeing any evidence of it and doubted I would even if I spent many more hours just focusing on the nest.

On March 24, on his lunch break, Mark Resendes was checking the nest when he spotted two hawks involved in a chase near the nest. Mark called me to describe it when “All of a sudden 1 hawk caught the other hawk about 25 feet in the air and both of them came spiraling down to the pavement. I was like $#it they are going to get killed because the height they were at and the delivery truck that was leaving. Sure enough that driver had the front row seat in this action and hit his brakes, and just before they hit the ground they BOTH flapped their wings like a parachute! They were locked on the ground but okay! Everyone froze for a few minutes, me , the driver, workers at ABT, and the hawks. Sure enough they unlocked from each other and started all over again!! This time they flew towards the Fresh Pond Mall, I couldn’t see anything for a minute, but then again there was a hawk soaring high in tight circles, then there was another hawk lower gliding in circles. Eventually the lower one flew towards Fresh Pond and the higher one flew towards the Rindge towers.

Buzz flew very low right over my bucket truck and landed in that tree where all of the chasing around was happening. I got out again to get a closer look. Buzz was acting like nothing ever happened! He was hunting, looking back and forth towards the ground. But seconds later he started looking towards the sky with his head whipping back and forth like he was looking at something. I couldn’t see anything, the sun was blinding me! Then there it was, a shadow. I looked again and it was a hawk!! But this time it kept flying/soaring away towards Raytheon. Buzz went back to hunt, He jumped to the ground and caught a small prize!! He started to fly towards the nest and then all of a sudden……RUBY leaps out of the nest flying towards Buzz. They met near the lamp post that is hard to view, I like to call it their picnic table. Buzz left the prey there and flew to the nest. Ruby must of dropped the prey because she then flew to the ground for a while.

From there, I kept seeing Buzz on duty fly back and forth in ABT, to and from the nest, non-stop for 10 plus minutes. I lost track of Ruby because I was trying to watch Buzz.

The intruder was a juvenile. Mark got several incredible photos, which are posted with his permission on my flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/30136859@N06/ along with a recent photo of Ruby and another Redtail. The kid, scared out of its wits while in Buzz’s clutches, looked larger than Buzz, but it is difficult to judge size when both birds are trying to puff up and intimidate the other. Two theories are the most likely. The juvenile was a female, saw an adult male and a nest, and tried to attract/impress the lonely male. Or this was a male who opted to challenge Buzz for the territory, nest and possibly Ruby. This was a kid, not yet one year old, engaged in a fight with a very experienced Buzz!

On March 30th a dark, heavily overcast rainy Sunday morning, several observers, including Susan Moses, Lynda Niedringhaus, and Amy Kipp, questioned if the bird we were seeing in her favored honey locust tree was actually Ruby. It just didn’t look like her. I could not confirm that we were seeing Ruby. The lower face, forehead, and throat looked unusually dark, but the bird was quite wet. Maybe the tannins from the sticks in the nest had stained her while she was sitting. Eventually, Mark shot a photo of the female with an overexposure to compensate for the very poor light. Blondish head, contrasting malar bar. I thought it looked like Ruby.

On April 1 I arrived at 6:00 a.m. A hawk appeared suddenly on the apex of 185. I assumed it was Buzz, but the morning was very dark. I got my scope out to check and saw a light head and distinctive malar bar. Ruby. Suddenly, Buzz flew in from the west and landed in the old nest on 185. He sat there for minutes before flying to the annex (the other side of the atrium)

Buzz flew off, west, and then Ruby. I spotted her in the honey locust. Buzz, it turns out, was also in the tree, hidden. He broke off a branch and flew east towards the 185 nest. Ruby began trying to break off a stick. After several futile efforts, she broke of a 2-3 inch stick and carried it to the Abt nest. Buzz was already standing on the nest bowl, waiting for her. When she landed, Buzz took off to the south and disappeared. In the 90 minutes I was watching, no one had been incubating….

Later that morning, while he was on break, Mark called me because he had three Redtails soaring over the 185 area. I drove back and discovered an intruder soaring low over Yates Pond, north of the T, doing territorial displays; stutter flapping. Large. A large adult. A female. She soared up. As I arrived at the mall, there was a column of three soaring Redtails. A big adult bird soaring low over the 185 parking lot. Had to be Ruby. Buzz was visually confirmed soaring above her, maybe a hundred feet higher, and a third, larger Redtail was soaring 100+ feet above Buzz. Buzz kept going higher and higher, and the larger, upper bird, drifted ever higher and north, out of sight. A little later I had a Redtail sailing west over the Rindge Towers. It landed on the southwest corner of Rindge #1, and then hurriedly jump-flew to the east roof, out of sight. Suddenly, I had a blue bullet, an adult Peregrine, dive bombing the east roof of Rindge 1. A Redtail leapt into the air and drifted east, rolling over in mid-air to defend itself from the falcon’s repeated stoops. Mark had arrived and snapped a quick photo, which showed a juvenile Redtail upside down. I saw a Redtail drop below the roof line and quickly drop down to the west down the B&M tracks. An adult, who melded into the tree line by Abt. But Mark was following a different Redtail, the juvenile, fleeing north, with the peregrine in pursuit. Over the next hour or so I had another large adult soaring up east of Russell Field. Buzz flew quickly towards this intruder and escorted it east. Later on I saw another large Redtail soaring up low over Danehy. Buzz made a beeline across Fresh Pond mall towards Danehy. This was a gorgeous, sunny, windy day, ideal for soaring after several days of rain, I thought we were seeing an unusually high amount of territorial testing and boundary setting, probably because it was such a great day to soar. All the hormones were soaring too.

Buzz continued to spend much time at 185, more than anytime in three years, bringing in stick after stick to the old nest on 185, and some sticks to the annex on the other side of the Atrium. He often brought in a stick to the nest and circled back to Abt. I believe it was this morning that I also had Buzz and Ruby copulating shortly after dawn, but except for the first sighting at dawn, I didn’t see Ruby on 185. Only Buzz, time and again. (Mark later photographed Ruby in the nest, with Buzz coming in and bumping her out.) The nest was dramatically built up, but the new sticks were not being carefully woven into the nest, and there was a stick dump in the annex.

Friday morning Buzz was around 185, but we saw a Redtail perched on the radio antenna to the east. Going over, we found a large, adult female Redtail seen in good light. She looked a larger than Ruby, and not as beautiful, and her plumage looked old and worn, bleached by the sun. Ruby had a clean rectangular white patch on her throat. This bird has a narrow bow-tie of white; less white than Ruby. This bird had a dark looking forehead and lower cheeks, and the malar bar was different from Ruby’s. Most notably, Ruby’s head was a bleached “honey blonde.” This female was a much paler, peroxide blonde. This bird looked much more washed out than Ruby, and her belly band was quite different. This was not Ruby, but this was the bird that Buzz flew in, landed on, and copulated with. Again. And again. And Again. This was the bird we had seen with Buzz in the honey locust on the gloomy Sunday.

On April 1, I had watched Buzz moving all around his territory breaking off sticks. I had seen a Redtail fly from Abt to perch high on the HVAC on 134 Cambridgepark, and then move to Archstone’s HVAC. I had taken a photo with my megazoom and blown it up 100X. A lightheaded adult with a noticeable malar bar. Ruby! She had seen Buzz because he flew in from the north to break off a foot-long branch from a tree in the Summer Shack parking lot. This was the bird that had watched Buzz on Monday. This was the female that Buzz had been soaring over, protecting from the intruder. OMG. All the intruders on Monday had been single birds. Large birds. Noticeably larger than Buzz. I thought they had all likely been females. The light dawned slowly in the east. These were females who had somehow gotten the message that there was a single, adult Redtail male looking for a mate. We had not seen anything like this activity with intruders since Buzz was injured almost a year earlier. These were unmated floater females, possibly even a migrant or two, looking for a mate with a good territory. But Buzz had already found a mate by Saturday, March 30th. Now he was defending that choice against this bevy of challengers who had to know this was a very new and perhaps soft bond. Not like the bond built up over four successful years between Buzz and Ruby.

This female liked the antenna. Not 185. If Buzz was mating with this peroxide blonde, again and again, Ruby was gone. I had thought Buzz had been frantically bringing tons of sticks to the old 185 nest because the clutch in the old Abt nest had failed. My operating theory was that Ruby had ceased incubating due to human disturbance. First, I had seen at times as many as three bucket cranes elevated above the nest tree while construction staff worked on the side of the north apartment wing. Hawks hate having potential threats moving about above the nest. There were bucket cranes floating up and down throughout the day, towering above the nest 15+ yards away. Second, a large sheet of plastic used on the roof at Atmark had blown free and been caught in the western branches of the nest tree, flapping incessantly in the strong winds. A sitting hawk, whose constant concern was potential predators finding the nest and taking eggs or young, would fear the continuous flapping movement near the nest. My best guess was that Ruby had abandoned the nest due to the continual disturbances. Never did I imagine that incubation had been abandoned because the female had died. Never.

The realization that Buzz had been copulating frequently with a new female was a shock, and led to a search in Abt, with their permission and guidance. Susan Moses found the body of an adult hawk on the ground near the nest. It was not bloody, but not identifiable. A necropsy will be performed to see if the cause of death can be determined. It will not establish absolutely that it is Ruby, but we know that it almost certainly is. Whatever, we know that Buzz knew he was without his mate.

The tie between Buzz and Ruby had been so strong. Growing over four years, through the production of 12 young hawks. Four entire years spent together. No splitting up for migration. The dawn meetings in the green tree, overlooking their territory. Buzz and Ruby. The first year my impression of her as a mate and a mother was molded by Buzz questioning her maturity. Rather than bring in food and give all the food to her to feed the chicks, Buzz first fed the chicks himself. Not typical. But Ruby proved herself. Ruby was an incredible mother. She made sure the “runt” chick, the last and smallest chick in the clutch, got enough food every day to survive. Buzz’s productive hunting and Ruby’s careful feeding of Lucky enabled the youngest in the first clutch to live up to his name.

I remember the Easter morning when she saw her reflection in the bronzed glass of 185 and began attacking that reflection time and again, almost knocking herself senseless to protect the young only a few feet above her. I remember Ruby flying at the Peregrine that was attacking Buzz, her smaller mate.

I remember Buzz and Ruby soaring high over Rindge Towers each time a chick in their first two clutches fledged. I remember the terror in Ruby’s eyes last year when Buzz did not return and she could not find him; and she had three hungry chicks in the nest. She ran herself ragged feeding those three kids, yet she quickly attracted and worked with HIM, a floater male who fed them all.

I remember Ruby the day Buzz returned from the clinic. We weren’t sure what he would do. What he could do. We knew what she would do, and she did it. Buzz and Ruby.

Buzz’s last name is “and Ruby.” Ruby is believed to have been six years old, mating with Buzz when she was in her second year. She was not his first mate. Possibly not even his second. And she was not his last. But she had to be his best.

The past week Buzz has been feverishly working on bringing sticks to 185, but also working with his new partner on the old Abt nest. This morning he was making trip after trip with sticks into the nest he shared with Ruby this year. It looks like she has no interest in developing the 185 nest. He copulated with his new partner frequently and intensely, as if he is acutely aware that it is getting late in the season for his new mate to lay eggs, incubate and raise young. And that is what it is all about. That is what he and Ruby were so good at, so accomplished at, raising 12 fledglings in 4 years.

I will continue to follow Buzz and his new mate, and try learn more about Redtails and hawks from them. But I will never forget Ruby.

Buzz and Ruby. What a wonderful four years.

Best,
Paul

Paul M. Roberts
Medford, MA
phawk254@comcast.net (more)