Volume CXXXIII, Number 15 February 8, 2002 f

Red-tailed hawk on campus
ARTHUR MIDDLETON
STAFF WRITER

Early one morning last week, a hawk killed and ate a gull just outside Smith Union. As I watched from the window nearest the café, small groups of campus pedestrians assembled, grew, observed, then shrank again. Because the facial expressions down there were so generally curious, it seemed a good idea to write a brief profile of the predator that, since early November, has been thriving on the campus.

The immature red-tailed hawk, seen last week outside Smith Union. (Kid Wongsrichanalai, Bowdoin Orient)

She is an immature red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), probably attracted to the Bowdoin campus and the town mall for their large populations of obese, complacent squirrels. The red-tail is a common hawk throughout North and Central America, and feeds generally on small mammals. But like all predators, the red-tail is an opportunist, and that explains the gull killed outside the Union. Birds are difficult to catch, but those unwise or unsuspecting birds that pass or perch beneath a red-tail are worth a try. Meat is meat.

This red-tail seems relatively large, probably female-in almost all birds of prey, the females are considerably larger than the males. Male red-tails weigh roughly two pounds, and females about three. The females' larger size helps them keep eggs and nestlings sufficiently warm. Different body sizes mean different skills, allowing a brooding pair of hawks to depend on more various prey: the swifter males hunt more mice, voles, chipmunks, and small birds, and the stronger females more gray squirrels, rabbits, and hares-and gulls, apparently.

Among other indications that she is immature, the red-tail on campus does not yet have the red-orange tail of the adult birds, which is particularly visible when they are soaring, backlit by the sun. Since she is in immature plumage, we can be sure she hatched sometime in May or June of 2001 and left the nest about two months later, full-grown. In the coming spring and summer she will moult her feathers gradually to assume full adult plumage. She will not reach sexual maturity until her third year.

Any immature hawk seen this time of year has already passed hundreds of survival tests. Mortality among red-tails in their first year is between 70 and 80 per cent; from a healthy brood of three red-tail nestlings, one will survive the winter. First the young hawk must fledge safely, then it must begin to deal with the predator's lifelong struggle against its prey's dislike of being caught: mice and squirrels bite, hares and rabbits kick, birds bite and jab. The slightest injury or infection, if it compromises hunting ability, can cause starvation for most hawks. And learning flight and hunting skills in the colder weather of fall and early winter intensifies all other stress in a young hawk's life.

The campus red-tail has been seen hunting most frequently on the quad, between Smith and Moulton Unions, on the Brunswick town mall, and around Farley Field House. During the winter, red-tails hunt from treetops and other high vantage points. The top of Hubbard Hall is a perfect position for surveying most of campus, and our campus hawk has been seen up there several times. She is not difficult to find in early morning or late afternoon, since she is most active then and is followed by a mob of noisy, persistent crows that may be heard from all corners of the campus. A female red-tail will eat a large meal, like a squirrel, every two to four days, depending on weather.

This winter has been mild, which may explain the high number of red-tails seen in southern Maine recently. Red-tail migration is not as straightforward as in other birds of prey. Although many red-tails migrate south from New England in October and November, many do not, especially when weather is so unseasonably warm. The red-tail on campus will probably remain in the area into the spring, when warm air and high winds will encourage her to fly higher and farther from winter residence.

If you see this hawk chasing or catching prey in the area and are interested in keeping track of her throughout the semester, send me an email (amiddlet@bowdoin.edu) and I will write an update later in the semester.