Birding at 60
Redtails on the Open Road
I am not a big fan of driving and there are probably some people who think I am somewhat obnoxious when I drive. But that’s another story. I have found though that one way to pass the time is being observant. I watch out for speeders, speed traps, bad drivers, and the usual weather issues. I also keep a steady eye out for birds, in particular red-tailed hawks and bald eagles.
I am often rewarded. When I see one, I try to note it, usually by a ready pen at hand with a tick mark on the back of my hand. I know that it’s probably not the smartest thing I could do but I have done it so often over the years, it’s merely a moment’s distraction. Over the past few years, I recorded 292 (2018), 394 (2019), 243 (2020) and 333 (2021) red-tails, mostly on Interstate 5. (The 2021 Christmas Bird Count found 53 red-tails in the Seattle area, a new CBC record.)
Red-tails are not hard to spot. Sometimes they are flying but more often they are perched on poles, branches, wires, bridges, and rarely, street signs. It’s always a bit of a surprise, and a thrill, to see one just a few feet off the road, seemingly unbothered by multi-ton walls of death zooming past. Nor do they appear especially perturbed by crows, who regularly dive bomb red-tails and are one of the best ways to spot the beautiful raptors.
On perches, red-tails often have a dark, sort of football-shaped silhouette. They are about two-thirds the size of an eagle and quite a bit larger than crows and rock doves, three other common freeway perchers. From the front red-tails have a mottled chest, which can sort of look like a bib, small brown head, and short tail. In flight, the two keys I look for are the red tail and patagial (from classical Latin patagium, a gold edging or border on a Roman woman's tunic) marks, dark bands at the front of the underside of the bird’s wings.
When I reached out to raptor researcher Bud Anderson, he told me that “from here to Mexico, red-tails on freeways are seeking out voles.” It’s a pretty simply equation: Freeway medians are perfect vole habitat and red-tails are programmed to eat voles. The problem, of course, is that a single-minded bird in pursuit of a meal does not stand a chance when hit by a vehicle. “Freeways are prey-rich tunnels of death,” says Bud.
Two things you can do to help.
1. If you want to report a dead bird, you can do so through the Seattle Audubon’s dbird, which is being used to help conservation work. 2. We have lots of rodents but unfortunately, many popular poisons use anticoagulant rodenticides, which can bioaccumulate and cause problems in raptors. So don’t use these evil chemicals.
Sadly, red-tails are not alone dying along freeways. Owls die far more often: total carcass removal on Washington highways between 2015-2020 was 683 owls versus 278 raptors (62 ID’ed as red-tails). Sarah Croston at WSDOT says it’s because “owls fly low when they are hunting, which makes them particularly susceptible to vehicular strikes especially during crepuscular/nocturnal hours.” Sarah and her colleague Glen Kalisz told me that not a lot can be done to avoid collisions but he had some advice.
To me, it’s the same story that I have been trying to write about for most of my career. Be aware. Pay attention. Slow down. As so often occurs at the interface between people and nature, we are incredibly blessed that so many animals and plants are resilient and adaptive and can survive in our midst. When I see a red-tailed hawk, I am reminded of a line from Watchable Birds of the Southwest by Mary Taylor Gray: "the sight of a redtail is somehow reassuring—proof that there are still places wild enough for a hawk to exist." I guess that the Interstate system must be wilder than I thought. Now, we just have to observe, honor, and protect the wild around us.
Thanks kindly to Bud, Sarah, and Glen for helping me with this newsletter.
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Tonight, February 10, I will be talking about Homewaters for the Wild Society Winter Speaking Series. The talk starts at 6:30, is virtual, and is free. Here’s a link to register.
Thank you for the lesson about patagial marks. That should help increase my identification skills of these hawks.
Hi David - Got a kick out of your column this morning, and I must tell you about my most unusual bald eagle sighting. It was at the 520 Montlake exit several years back. Construction on the exit ramp hadn’t started yet, and I thiiiiiink there was still a narrow median between the two direction of cars. If no real median, maybe just a concrete barrier.
So, there I was, driving out to UVillage from downtown, and I was on the exit ramp heading east, maybe 8 cars back from the traffic light, waiting for the light to change. Suddenly from the opposite direction, an eagle, chased by crows, swooped down nearly to ground level between the two directions of cars. Everything happened so quickly - the light changed, the birds swooped up to the west, and I had to be on my way. Yikes! What a way to start the day - for all of us:-)