Keep Calm and Bird On: February 2021
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.”
-Edith Andrews
Although it might seem too soon for birds to be thinking about nesting in February, Red-tailed Hawks begin pairing up early. Migrants may go their separate ways over the winter but often re-unite when they return. When staying on the same territory year-round they may never split up.
Often, they will sit together on a branch or rooftop, surveying the scene. Courtship or re-bonding also involves soaring high, circling in updrafts—known as thermals—on sunny days. Or, they may take a more acrobatic approach, climbing, diving, or swooping in a display of strength and agility that’s hardly a lazy circle.
They sometimes re-use their old nests. Both male and female—the larger of the two—bring new building material. Watch for them flying overhead carrying a stick—sometimes a quite large stick—heading for home. They may add material to more than one old nest, or start new before deciding where to lay their eggs. Although they often prefer conifers, they can use a variety of spots. The famous New York City pair “Pale male and Lola” nested high on a Fifth Avenue apartment building. Their story is recounted in “Redtails in Love” by Marie Wynn, a good winter read. Even the course of hawk love never does run smooth.
Both birds incubate the eggs, which take a little under a month to hatch. The young are brooded for four to five weeks but are still fed by parents for some weeks or even months after they leave the nest. They can be heard begging sometimes well into the fall. Their raspy scream is a call beloved of movie sound designers, perhaps the most often-heard bird sound on TV.
It will be a while before the young Red-tailed Hawk pictured above looks for a mate. Note the yellow eyes and still brownish tail. It takes three or four years before an immature develops brown eyes and rusty rufous tail.
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