A tale of a ‘tail, and of getting to know the neighbors.
Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve been working remotely. And since you’re reading Dawn Chorus, I’m gonna guess that many of you have used this opportunity to re-engage with your neighborhood birds. In recent years, I’ve rarely had time to just hang out and look out my window. That changed this spring.
We live across the street from a covered reservoir in San Francisco, surrounded on three sides with trees. The trees directly across for me have hosted nests for the past several years — ravens, and before them redtails. The ravens fledged young three years in a row; redtails had a nest failure the year before. The redtails have tried nesting elsewhere around the reservoir but even though I’ve seen the pair(s) sitting together in tree tops, I’ve only found one nest over the years.
Tails in the air.
Over the winter, I saw our local pair flying together regularly and had hopes that maybe this would be the year that I could find the nest. Occasionally other redtails would join them, but they generally ran them all off. One juvenile seemed to be pretty persistent and continued to hunt the hillside by the reservoir despite attacks by both the redtails and the ravens, who were once again starting up their nesting.
I had more time to watch them with the shutdown, especially when I’d spend my lunch working in the backyard. Over the course of a few weeks, the three became two — but to my surprise, it was one of the adults that moved on. Even more interesting, the juvenile (technically, a Second Year bird, meaning it had hatched the previous year) was acting as though it was paired up with the adult. Typically, larger birds like redtails don’t pair up until their third year, when they’re wearing their adult plumage.
They flew together, perched together, chased ravens together — then one day I saw a prey exchange between the two. That seemed to confirm that they were a pair. I doubled down on my search for a nest.
Ravens weren’t the only challenging corvid — crows were also relentless.
One day, I heard a ruckus in the street and saw the juvenile getting into it with a crow. They both landed on a power pole at the corner, so I went to grab some photos — and I noticed something.
Well, this is an interesting development.
Hey! This bird has a band.
So now for a little bit of a side story…
We had a holiday open house in December and invited some of our neighbors. At the party, we found out that one neighboring family includes an 11-year-old birder who is really good; his parents (especially dad) share the enthusiasm, and love to photograph birds as well. We now trade bird sightings over the fence and text (or sometimes just give a shout) when something cool shows up in our yards or at the reservoir.
I had already mentioned my suspicions that they might be a pair, and after getting the first few numbers of the band I wanted to see if I could more of the band number. I told them that I was going on a search and the young birder joined me, with dad catching up later. After about an hour of fruitless searching, we were almost back where we started when we spotted the bird.
My young neighbor has a pretty good camera, and the agility to scramble up and down the hillside to get a better angle. Within about 20 minutes, we were able to piece together the full band number. He reported it to the bird banding lab, and I called the banding manager at Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (where I volunteer) since it seemed likely that it was a bird we banded.
Bird Banding Lab certificate for reporting a band recovery.
From GGRO, I learned that the bird was indeed one we’d banded, and that it was a very large female who was captured during the first week of the season. That early banding date suggests that she was a locally-hatched bird, not a migrant. And in a fun coincidence, she had been banded by the guy who first introduced me to the banding program 25 years earlier.
My neighbors and I continue to follow the pair. The younger neighbor and I made one other attempt to find a nest — no luck. But we did get some photos that showed her molt progressing. It was cool to see the transition between the simple two-tone juvenile plumage and her rich adult colors.
Some spotty juvenile belly feathers remain among the subtle tones of her new adult plumage.
One day I saw a flash of motion across the street and realized she had just grabbed a meal. I grabbed my scope and tried to get a look from a decent distance (birding ethics mean never chasing a bird who is eating — they work hard for their prey, and you don’t want the creature to have given its life in vain.) I also let my neighbor know, and he was out with his camera in minutes.
Rough day for the pigeon.
We soon realized that she had no concerns whatsoever about people. Perhaps she recognized that the reservoir fence prevented people from getting closer, or maybe it’s because she’s just used to all of us since it’s a very popular dog walking area. She allowed my neighbor to walk within 20’ of her tree; she completely ignored the dog walkers, runners, little kids and people out for a stroll with friends. A few mentioned that they often watched the hawks on their walks — she’s got a bit of a local fan club.
Ravens mobbing the redtail in her favorite treetop.
It turns out that those fans include the four year old next door. He now has his own pair of little kid binoculars, and he likes to tell me about the birds he sees on his walks. He also likes looking at our neighbor’s feeders. It’s pretty cool how the shutdown brought the neighbors together, and led us to discover our shared interest.
Of course, there are some locals who are not (and never will be) fans…
What’s new in your neck of the woods?
