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Red Tail Buzz: Courtship, Romance, and Family Planning at Alewife

First, thank you to everyone who has written me personally regarding Ruby’s death and my loooong posts on Buzz and Ruby. Your thoughts are much appreciated. I have so many short-terms schedule conflicts right now that it is not possible for me to answer every email in as timely a way as I would like, but I will answer them over the next several weeks. I have not even had time to finish transcribing my notes from early April, though it is clear by now that Ruby had already passed in March. It is time-consuming to transcribe hours upon hours of audio notes, then analyze them, and work through and process the hundreds of photos to ensure we get it as close to right as possible. Thank you for your patience.

I did want to get this out quickly to share the good news with you. Buzz and his new mate, christened Belle, began incubating sometime Friday, April 18. Belle was discovered incubating on Saturday morning, and about 5:45 a.m. Buzz came in and relieved her. She was very slow to get up for her bathroom break after incubating for 9+ hours straight; she was not anxious to leave, and she returned in less than half an hour.

Incubation usually begins before the completion of the clutch. We do not know how many eggs she has or will be laying, but they usually lay between 2-4. Eggs are usually laid every other day, with the average time to full clutch of 5 days.

Many aspects of this nesting fascinate me and raise many questions. First, Tom French is fond of quoting about Redtails “Mate for a lifetime but don’t mourn for a minute.” There is a lot of truth in that. We don’t yet have a reasonably good date on when Ruby died, but we can be reasonably sure it was traumatic for Buzz. They had already apparently acknowledged that Ruby’s clutch was not going to be successful, for whatever reason. To lose her 2-3 weeks after incubation had begun had to be very unnerving.

Whatever, within a matter of days, if that long, Buzz was apparently advertising for a female. As we discussed when Buzz disappeared last year and Ruby could only assume that Buzz was dead, somehow she put out an alert that “eligible gorgeous female with choice property and three young kids” was for looking for a male who would be a good mate and provider. Almost certainly, this advertising is all done with visual clues in what looks to mere thick-headed humans like a normal display flight. The purpose is to be high in the sky, visible to any flying and many perched Redtails within literally miles, announcing to male “floaters” and perhaps some already mated males that the opportunity of a lifetime was currently available. There are literally several dozen paired Redtails that could see such a display over Alewife, and god knows how many unmated birds, floaters, looking for a territory (if male), and a mate (either gender). These are second-year to graying adults looking for a new partner, and by the end of March, most of the winners locally had already won. After this tough, cold, snowy winter there may have been many widows and widowers. We really don’t know. We don’t know how many floaters (unmated breeding age birds) there are locally, but one can roughly assume roughly 50% + or – 20% of the population are floaters. You may not notice them much because there is little purpose to visibly displaying when all the paired birds are incubating or rearing chicks. Breeding males may be very protective of their mate and young and not tolerate floating intruders of either gender. The basic philosophy may be “ lie low until the next round of musical Redtails is played,” very early next year, but keep your eye open for unexpected vacancies, such as happened last yea with Buzz and Ruby.

Several years ago we had a huge second-year female, “Blondie,” who was molting heavily in spring, so that at best she looked like Cinderella the charwoman long before the ball. She hung out alone in a small park in Somerville, feeding on squirrels and pigeons, and emerged a gorgeous young adult, but she was going to be in her third year before she would find any eligible male with land and food.

In late March, Mark Resendes and I began noticing mid-day displays with three and at times four Redtails in one thermal. Buzz was always the second closest to the ground, verified visually. I automatically assumed (remember what they say about don’t assume, it can make an ass of u and me) the low bird was Ruby, larger than Buzz, and flying low over the nest grove and territory. I was focusing on trying to identify the hawk or two flying high above Buzz. To photograph them. Success was limited. (A euphemism.)

As I described in my post of April 6, the bird flying beneath Buzz had to be the female we are calling Belle, suggested by Nancy Given. We saw her perched in the honey locust on March 31. As noted several people questioned then if that was Ruby. Susan Moses saw her, possibly on the radio antenna, and Susan began to believe she might the only one who was still questioning if this wasn’t Ruby.

This is where I have to wait until I have finished transcribing my notes. The important point here is that Buzz had clearly recognized that Ruby had passed and had already “placed the ad on the “Alewife Aerial Dating Service.” In fact, he had already found a female to succeed (never replace) Ruby. By April 1, he was defending her from floaters, and aggressively chasing away other floaters who were displaying for him.

I was sufficiently thick-headed (some whelps might say that’s not the first time) that although I was surprised to see the most Redtails displaying over Alewife that I have seen in four years, and that virtually all of them appeared to be females, that I failed to connect the dots until April 4, when I saw Buzz was copulating with a female who was not Ruby.

Realizing that the list of players was different, several things were obvious.

First, we saw Buzz copulating with Belle more in three weeks than we probably saw with Buzz and Ruby in three years. There was a real sense of urgency obvious in Buzz. Speaking as a male, either Belle was the hottest thing to ever fly over Alewife (doubtful), or Buzz was aware that the window in which to nest successfully this year was closing quickly. Very quickly. Ruby had laid eggs around March 8. That clutch had failed, for whatever reason. It takes roughly 3 weeks for a female to get ready physiologically to mate and began laying (Palmer, 1988), although in Alaska it can happen in 14-21 days. That meant laying sometime around April 18 or 19. That would mean eggs hatching (knock on wood) sometime around May 19-21. That would mean chicks fledging sometime around July 4th, the time when Broad-winged Hawk young are fledging. Yikes.

There were probably two reasons for Buzz’s sense of urgency; the alarms likely set off instinctively. First, the whole tableaux of how long it would take to produce chicks that could fledge successfully. Second, and this might well be the most immediate driver, the recognition that he had to feed Belle well, very well, to prime her instincts and her body to mate and to begin producing eggs, possibly for the first time. We saw Buzz rolling shopping carts out of Whole Foods, stuffed with goodies. Not literally, but he became a feeding fanatic. Most noticeable, multiple times in early April we saw him carrying snakes, usually 12-20 inches long, in his talons from the east (along the B&M tracks and Danehy) and looking for Belle, often with limited success. His instinct was to bring these gorgeous fresh snakes to 185 and then the nest grove, but he could not find the $#@^&*%^ either place. He soared over Fresh Pond mall with a foot-and-a half- long snake dangling beneath him. How many shoppers do you think noticed? What would they have done if a snake had fallen 200 feet out of the sky onto their car? I wish.... One day he soared all over the area and finally left the snake on the southwest corner of 185 while he went looking for his new mate. Belle and Buzz were not on the same wave length that Buzz and Ruby had been, but this new hawk had been on the scene for only a week or two. One day I found a small rodent that I have yet to confirm by photo but I think it was a White-footed (deer) mouse lying on the parking lot path to Staples. It was not there when I walked in, but it was there, deader than a doornail, when I walked out, and it had not been run over. My best guess was that Buzz had inadvertently dropped it, likely while soaring trying to find out where his new mate had gone, so he could “prime the pump.”

The hawk walkers knew where to find Buzz’s new squeeze. On the radio antenna. Between 60-120 feet high, where everyone, EVERYONE, in metropolitan Boston could see Buzz fly in and mount his new mate. Again....And again..... And again. Buzz and Ruby had been a bit more discreet. But there might have been method in her madness. By spending hours perched on the antenna (actually a broadcast tower) she was clearly proclaiming to all and sundry that this was her new territory, and Buzz was her new mate. The repeated matings for all to see clearly established this relationship. Almost every time, Buzz would perch near her afterwards for a short while (decent thing to do), and then take off for the heart of his territory while she remained on the metal bars of the tower.

All those female floaters out there had to know now that Buzz was taken. But that does not mean they didn’t give up trying. Mark and I saw aerial challenges virtually every day, usually between 12 and 2, until this past weekend. I expressly went looking for challenges yesterday for almost two hours in early afternoon and saw not a one. Coincidence, or game, set, and match to Belle?

It is interesting that I do not recall seeing any high aerial duets with Buzz and Belle. No high aerial displays of bonding and commitment, though Buzz did stutter flap over her when challengers were in the area.

There was one other critical issue. Where do the newlyweds nest? Early on it clearly seemed as though Buzz wanted to avoid the nest he had shared with Ruby this year. There might be abandoned eggs, or even broken eggs, in there. And it might be subject to the human disturbances that I felt might have led to abandoning that clutch. Buzz started carrying a ----load of sticks to the old nest on 185. He began rehabbing it. He carried a number of sticks to the annex, on the other side, though they were not woven into any semblance of a nest. At least twice fairly early in the month we saw Belle in the old 185 nest, but she apparently did not care for the thought of raising kids on that ledge. Maybe Belle is more an old-fashioned Redtail. (Redtails were born to breed in trees, not on bricks!) Again, I have to finish transcribing my April notes, but what is clear is that 185 was not satisfactory for her and suddenly all the sticks in the annex were gone and Buzz and Belle were working on the old Abt nest. When she was sitting in the old nest on Saturday, it was evident that Buzz and Belle had put in a completely new floor into the old nest. When Ruby was incubating only weeks ago, it was almost impossible to verify that she was sitting when she sat tight. You had to keep a constant eye on the nest to verify a nest exchange, revealing that the nest had been occupied. Now, Belle and Buzz are sitting so high you can see rivers of marshmallow fluff on top of the nest shortly after dawn; the back of a sitting Red-tailed Hawk. You can look them both in the eye.

In fact, beyond the joy of knowing that Buzz has had a chance to pass on his amazing genes to another generation, it is beautiful to see Belle and Buzz incubating. Belle is NOT Ruby, but she is rather beautiful. She is easily identified on the nest or on an exposed perch because her head is much lighter, paler, than Ruby’s. In normal light, it looks bleached out. She has two dark large malar bars that contrast sharply with her light cheeks (farther back). She also has a dark fore crown, so that head on, her face looks dark down the middle, but not from the side. She has a small, irregular patch of reddish brown on the back of her crown, as almost all Redtails do, that looks like a bit of old, misplaced rustoleum paint. Her throat is not the bright, clear white rectangle that Ruby had. Her throat is more off-white, almost in the shape of a bow-tie when sitting. When standing, she looks a bit bigger than Ruby, especially around the upper chest, and she has less fine barring and a more noticeable vertical belly band than Ruby did, above the waist. Overall, she has far fewer warm rufous tones than Ruby did. Her eyes are dark.

We know nothing about her. Was she mated before? Unlikely, but we just don’t know. She is likely in at least her third or possibly fourth year. She is obviously committed to her nest and eggs, and reluctant to leave it/them for any reason. With the new floor in the nest, when she is sitting her deep dark eyes are limped pools beside her distinctive malar bars as she alertly watches all the activity around the nest. Unlike Ruby, she does not appear accustomed to being watched by groups of people at a distance. Thus, she keeps checking us out, but she appears perfectly relaxed, showing no alarm. Belle appears home. She has to get to know the neighborhood better, but Belle is home ... with Buzz.

Best,

Paul

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





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