Monthly Archives: November 2007

‘Your bird is out there above the dumpsters.’

Birds of Prey
Adult red-tailed hawk (photo by Chuck Tague)

14 November 2007

“Your bird is out there above the dumpsters.” That’s what Cliff, our maintenance man, tells me at least once a week at WQED Pittsburgh. 

Many people at work know that I’m interested in birds and at WQED the two most interesting birds are the pair of red-tailed hawks who’ve claimed the surrounding territory.  I am sure to hear when they’re nearby.

This pair has made themselves famous by hunting for rodents behind the dumpsters (good job!), for soaring together and mating on top of Central Catholic High School, for eating a rabbit in a tree outside our third floor windows, and for ignoring their loudly whining youngsters who are too old to be begging from mom and dad.

And they look just plain huge when perched.  

The red-tails have generated a lot of questions over the years.  Some of the answers are…   

  • They live in the city because there’s enough to eat and they aren’t harassed in town. 
  • They eat rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, mice, rats and pigeons.  I am especially glad they eat rats.
  • They won’t try to eat something that will put up a fight because they can’t afford to get hurt while catching dinner.  They are very, very unlikely to attack a small dog or cat.
  • Because they pounce on their prey from above, red-tails like to perch on tall dead trees.  To a red-tail, light posts on the Parkway look like tall dead trees.
  • Yes, they have a nest somewhere near here but only in spring.  Their nest is the babies’ bed.  The adults don’t live in the nest themselves. 
  • It is a sign of courtship when the male brings a dead chipmunk to his mate.
  • They are ignoring that loud, whining hawk because he’s their kid.  He has to learn to hunt and if they feed him he will never learn.  He thinks begging will break their resolve. 
  • If two red-tails are perched next to each other, they are either mates or parent and child.  Red-tails don’t make friends with other red-tails.

Today the red-tails were busy, busy.  Hunting.  A cold front is coming tonight and they had to eat today because they don’t know how long bad weather will last.  Better to face the storm with a full stomach.   In winter it’s a matter of life and death.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

What a difference a day makes

Schenley Park, Weather & Sky

Fall leaves and sky in Oakland (photo by Kate)No gray skies today!  I took this picture at lunch time.

With good weather today and a cold front coming tomorrow, the birds are quite active:  large flocks of grackles in Schenley Park, blue jays flying south, a red-tailed hawk hunting near Central Catholic High School (steeple in picture), and a peregrine falcon perched at the top of University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.

Gray Day

Weather & Sky
gray sky, no leaves, November morning in Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)

It’s an overcast morning in Pittsburgh, the third day in a row of gray skies, not unusual for November. There are very few birds in view. The most active animals are squirrels.

On days like this I think of the poem ‘No!’ by Thomas Hood (1844) a portion of which reads:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day. ...
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

Waiting for Tundra Swans

Migration, Water and Shore

9 November 2007

Any day now tundra swans will move through western Pennsylvania on their way south to the Chesapeake. 

A flock usually flies over my house at night in early November.  I know they’re overhead when I hear them calling as they fly, a “woo-ing” sound that resembles the voices of children playing in the distance.  If I’m lucky, I’m already outdoors and can see them illuminated from below by the city lights.  Otherwise I race for the door, burst outside in the dark – and usually miss them.

Tundra swans hold a particular fascination for me because they rarely spend any time near Pittsburgh.  Those seen overhead in the fall generally spend the summer breeding in Canada’s Northwest Territory and Alaska’s North Slope.  In autumn they fly south and east across Canada, the Great Lakes and Pennsylvania, destined for Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina – a journey that covers 3,600 miles and takes about 12 weeks. 

I will never forget the time I watched a flock of tundra swans land at dusk on Yellow Creek Lake in Indiana County.  I was sitting in the Waterfowl Observatory blind, unable to see the sky.  Snow had started falling when I heard the voices of swans overhead.  As they came into view they circled once then, one after the other, they cupped their wings and landed in a gliding V on the lake.  What a beautiful thing.

Come, swans!

(photo by Chuck Tague)