Urban Red-Tails: The Queens Experience

By Jeff Kollbrunner

The urban environment is not where most people would expect to see a raptor of any kind. Red-tailed hawk is a species most commonly associated with woodlands, farms and open land. Over the last decade in Queens, NY, raptors have adopted a new territory within our urban landscape. These magnificent birds of prey are of great benefit to the urban environment and a good answer to help us control our overabundant rodent and pigeon populations.


 

Twelve years ago, a pair of red-tailed hawks moved into Briarwood in Queens, NY, and luckily for us, they liked their new home. We affectionately named them Mama and Papa. During this time my wife and I have logged thousands of hours observing them, learning their habits and the boundaries of their urban territory. Originally a sports and landscape photographer, the majesty of the red-tailed hawk turned me into a wildlife photographer. Advancements in digital photography made it possible to shoot more images than with traditional film. I am attempting to capture the life habits of “our” red-tailed hawks and their offspring. Each year over time, using diverse techniques and never interfering with the young hawks, I have been able to gain more of the trust of these incredible raptors, getting closer into their world, entering their inner circle. Eventually, I have been able to get within six feet of them on a regular basis. During this time, I was witness to the challenges and setbacks they faced as they adapted to their urban environment. I learned about their diet, nesting habits, raising and care of their young, and the use and defense of their territory.

Observing Mama and Papa over the last twelve years has revealed their amazing qualities, far from just roosting, hunting and reproducing, as some may believe. In 2004 I observed the development of two youngsters day by day. One fledgling, after it left the nest for good, crashed into the side of a building on a couple of bad days with gusty wind. It became apprehensive and, appearing to loose confidence in itself, retreated back to the nest for the next ten days. The other, more skilled and confident sibling – we named him “Golden Boy” – attempted to “inspire” the timid sibling. Routinely, it would land above the nest and call down to its sibling, flap its wings in what appeared to be an attempt to say, “This is how you do it, let’s go.” Helping the parents, Golden Boy even hunted to provide food for his apprehensive sibling while it stayed in the nest. After ten days, we saw the two fly together. Golden Boy continued to maintain a watchful eye for his sibling, staying nearby and sharing his food, and the two remained close to each other until the end of summer.

In 2005, Papa injured his wing protecting the nest. While sitting on top of buildings his wing would rise freely over his head with the slightest breeze, and at rest it hung low by his side. He could only use it to glide while he used the other, good wing to fly. The injury limited his hunting capability. Mama hawk, his long time mate, fed him during the more than three months he was injured. Each evening when he landed next to her to roost, she checked his injured wing. Clear even to a casual observer, she was carefully checking her mate’s damaged wing. The injury finally healed, Papa returned to protecting his territory, hunting and successfully producing offspring. Without Mama’s support he may not have lived very long.

In 2006, our hawks’ nest was destroyed by humans when they were about to lay eggs. This is despite the fact that red-tailed hawks are protected under both federal and New York State laws; during the nesting season, it is illegal to remove or destroy their nests and eggs. Severe fines and potential jail sentencing protect these raptors and their offspring from harm by humans. Luckily, Mama and Papa were able to build a new nest in forty eight hours at a nearby location. They still had enough time to lay another set of eggs approximately two weeks later. (In many cases when a nest is destroyed, it is too late to start another and successfully produce young that same year.) The nice people in the apartment by the nest left the hawks alone and helped protect the location. They kept their shades drawn and left Mama and Papa undisturbed to care for their young. The red tail parents raised two healthy young hawks that fledged the day before Father’s Day. The two youngsters were doing fine the first two weeks, after which we lost track of one of them. The other sibling, that we named White Face on account of the many light-colored feathers on its face is doing well.

One would imagine that a red-tailed hawk could not blend into our urban landscape. However, the large buildings constructed of red brick and concrete, abundant antennas, fire escapes, lampposts and mature trees all provide perfect camouflage for the red-tail hawk, allowing it to seemingly disappear from sight. They sit with great patience, sometimes for hours, observing virtually unnoticed their territory for intruders, and prey from these many vantage points.

Urban lifestyle provides numerous challenges to the red-tail hawk, chief among them people. Typically, when people don’t know or understand a species they tend to develop fear. In most cases when people fear a species they tend to destroy or try to control it. Observing the urban red-tailed hawk, I have had numerous discussions about them. I have met concerned and fearful people, some actually believing their babies and children at risk of being taken by the red-tailed hawk, their dogs and cats at risk of being killed or that they themselves may be attacked. While the red-tailed hawk looks large it typically weighs only two to three pounds and cannot lift prey much larger than a squirrel. The typical diet of the red tail includes small rodents, mice, rats, squirrels, voles and chipmunks. In urban areas, they have added the common pigeon. On rarer occasions the red tail when unsuccessful in hunting may raid the nest of a robin, red winged blackbird or mockingbird. (In the twelve years I have been observing Mama, Papa and their young, raiding these nests has not happened very often.)

Red-tailed hawk nest sites in the urban landscape are commonly situated on hardscapes such as apartments and office buildings as opposed to their more typical sites in rural areas, tall trees. They tend to select nest sites at least six stories high. Usually they settle on fire escapes, large air-conditioner units or concrete ornamental elements that project from building facades to construct their nests. Buildings are perfect as they provide protection from predators and wind and at night release radiant heat. Unfortunately, building management gets involved when tenants complain about the nesting hawks out of fear or inconvenience, or wants the nest removed citing health- related concerns following from the raptors’ food remnants collecting in the nest or landing on the ground below. In many cases I have learned of stories that were either exaggerated or fabricated just to rid the building of the nest.

Few people understand the educational opportunity of having raptors nesting on their building. The red tail routinely removes the remnants of their food from the nest to a far away location to avoid attracting predators. The female sits on the eggs and stays on or near the nest until the young fledge. The male provides relief to the female during the day. The red tail parents feed the young a few times each day and are very quiet during this time so as not to attract predators to the nest. The nesting period takes three months from building the nest to the young fledging. The red-tailed hawk lays one to four eggs in a season, most commonly two eggs. During the last six weeks of the nesting process there are chicks to raise and then they will fledge the nest on their own. They may return to the nest periodically for the first couple weeks after fledging. Any bird “paint” that the raptors leave behind will eventually wash off the building with the rain or building management can wash it off after the young ones leave.

When a nest is near or close to a window, it is helpful to the hawks to keep the window closed, blinds or window treatments drawn and not interfere with the birds. This keeps the red tails calm and prevents harming them. Trying to view the nest from up close, such as from an adjoining window or rooftop will cause the hawks to become defensive. Like any other species, including humans, if any harm threatens their young, the parents will become defensive. If given this courtesy during the nesting process, the red tails will in turn do their part controlling rodent and pigeon populations near the building and provide an educational opportunity few ever get to experience first hand.

Once the young have fledged the nest, Mama and Papa will always keep them in sight. During the weeks after fledging, the young hawks work on their flying, landing and hunting skills. They will typically keep to a smaller reserved area of the parents’ territory as they develop. They will practice hunting by swooping on items lying on the ground such as twigs, plastic bottles, cups and leaves. If the young hawks do not yet catch enough food for the day, the parents will provide for them. It has become clear to me that these raptors are intelligent and learn very quickly to become independent and efficient hunters. After a few weeks, the young hawks become quite self-sufficient.

Collecting information on Mama and Papa and their behavior over time, a few things became apparent. The urban red-tailed hawk’s territory is approximately 1.25 to 1.5 square miles in size. They appear to not mismanage their territory by over hunting any one area. They have a number of roosting locations around their territory. We have identified four and they rotate using these locations every few days to a week. They have separate nesting locations within this territory mostly facing North, Northeast or East. Lastly, one smaller area within the territory is reserved for training their young, and we have never witnessed the adult red tails hunt there.

In the last few years, Mama and Papa have gained new neighbors that have also arrived in our area – other red-tail hawks, coopers hawk, sharp shinned hawk, kestrel and the peregrine falcon. Mama and Papa have protected their territory from intruders and other hawks rather respectfully. We have witnessed many intruders being escorted without an attack to the boundaries of the territory.


Once the intruder is beyond their boundary, the red tails return. Once I have witnessed a peregrine falcon attacking Papa in his territory. For over two hours Papa stayed close to the peregrine in a defensive posture so the falcon could not gain altitude or speed, and attempted many times to escort the falcon to the territory boundary. On each occasion, the falcon would return to fight again. Eventually Mama joined her mate and the two of them successfully escorted the peregrine falcon further out of their territory without ever directly attacking it.

Within a short period of time after meeting our red-tailed hawks for the first time, we felt these raptors were “our” red-tail hawks. Spending hours in their presence, observing their behavior, searching for and checking their nest sites to make sure they are safe one begins to understand the majesty of this raptor, its keen awareness and intelligence. Once people identify a red-tailed hawk as their own they are more likely to respect and protect the species. I can only hope that through these photographs and this story more people become aware of the majesty of the red-tailed hawk. If we assist the red-tailed hawk to succeed in urban areas, our environment will become healthier, with a better balance than we have now. We should do our part to help it flourish in the urban environment to the benefit of both man and hawk.


For more information and to view additional photos, please visit www.jknaturegallery.com

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