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 As of mid-January '04 the plumages of both adult and immature Redtails began getting richer and darker. For immatures over the last couple of weeks [following the second deep freeze], the belly bands have gotten wider or more western-like. On the continuum of general Redtail markings, the bird at the left is what's been arriving these days. While the bird in the inset at the right is what was around from late Fall through New Year's and into early January.
The immature Red-tailed Hawk at the left was photographed on Thursday February 5, 2004 on Amherst Island, Ontario. |
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On Wednesday, 2/11/04, I digiscoped this distant immature Redtail at Nine Acre Corner in Concord MA. Maybe [or maybe not] the same individual I nearly grilled for lunch on Sunday as it flew low over Route 117.
Today, this immie was sitting NW of the NAC stoplight and the richly colored adult bird that chased it out into the path of my car was sitting on the ground SE of the corner. Like the bird above it, this immature has a wider-on-the-sides heavy belly band that has been the rule for these more northerly RTs. Also just North of the intersection was a familiar pair of Redtails sitting tight in a tree the female prefers to hunt from when she is off on her own for the middle part of the day. |
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On the next day, this immature Redtail was sitting on the very tip-top of a small tree in Nine Acre Corner. Sitting comfortably still, this Redtail [not Roughleg] is bending the very tip of this small tree over to form a perch.... just like mom and dad. In the land of small trees? Again, look at this bird's point of contact: where the talons meet the tree!
Oops, but it's a spotted bird, like the inset above, not a solid banded immature. Oh well, maybe it's been around or maybe it has just arrived. What it means is one thing... what it is, another. I last saw a bird like this one on January 23rd just at the Sudbury Road crossing over the Sudbury River [in Concord, or course, not Sudbury... ain't New England place naming fun]. The point here is the seeing and, secondarily, our interpretations. And in Stow this week, I've had an immature Redtail with a very blackish brown back in my backyard -- a young, blonde bird. |
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This is a familiar pair at Nine Acre Corner in Sudbury MA on Sunday, February 15th. After they were sitting tight early in the morning, it was off they went, going their separate ways for Sunday brunch. But at 11:30am they were back near their early morning perch in close proximity without being shoulder-to-shoulder. The male is the bird on the lower right... more times than not though, I see him sitting above and to the left of the female [if you can, insert Seinfeld reference about male-female couch sitting here].
Yes, this is "pair sitting." It's the raptor equivalent of a sectional sofa... I learned this bit of biology from Barry and Eliot*. It seems the "sectional" is a very popular choice in the couch family for our species. Pairs of humans can choose to sit close or sit farther apart, while still maintaining the pair bond. Hence the "evolution" of this elongated couch. As with everything else in life, we have learned this behavior from watching the Red-tailed Hawk. |