"SEAS hawk" is healed and back home

We are pleased to let everyone know that the injured female red-tailed hawk who had build a nest atop Maxwell Dworkin this past spring has been released back into the wild after suffering an injury (presumable from an automobile).

Reports from local papers and hawk enthusiasts are below.

Report from Cambridge Chronicle

John Harrison reports: "The injured hawk from the Oxford St. nest was released back into the wild Saturday afternoon on the grass in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Cambridge resident and 185 Alewife hawkwatcher Susan Moses had the happy assignment from the Tufts facility in Grafton to release the hawk. Susan has been following up on the progress of the hawk since the injury so the staff decided Susan should be the one to release the hawk. Susan and Amy Kipp arrived at Oxford St. Saturday with the hawk in a box. They put the box on the grass at 12:45PM and opened the box and the hawk immediately flew off like a champion. It flew across the street and landed on the tree where its nest from 2010 was located. It surely knew it was home! The hawk stayed there for a few minutes acclimating itself and then took off and landed on the roof of the Harvard School of Engineering near the tree, where two other hawks quickly took off. In a couple of minutes we saw all three hawks soaring above. The Tufts facility did a great job bringing the hawk back from its injury."

Full article

Report from John Harrison (photographer)

Good (rainy) morning, hawkwatchers. Thanks to Susan Moses, we had a particularly exciting Saturday. The Tufts facility in Grafton, that had been caring for the injured 33 Oxford St. hawk for the past month, felt the hawk was ready to go home and gave Susan the happy task of releasing the red tail back into the wild.

Susan and Amy got the bird at about 11:30AM in Grafton and came to Oxford St., Cambridge. At 12:45PM Saturday, on the grass in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Susan opened the box and the hawk flew out like a champ, quickly landing on a tree across the street, where its 2010 nest was located. The hawk surely knew it was home. Soon after that our released hawk and two other hawks were soaring overhead, often bumping each other and, finally, locking talons and spinning in a spiral.  What a display.....I look forward to talking with Paul for an explanation about this activity.

Susan followed the progress of the hawk throughout its rehabilitation and Tufts felt she was the perfect candidate to set the hawk free.  I sent some pix and explained the story in an email to Ken MacLeod of WBZ-TV, who did the story on Buzz and Ruby and the kids last year.  Ken did a short piece on the release on the 11PM news last night.  I hope some of you caught it......

GOOD WORK, SUSAN!!!!!!!!  Here's the story in pictures......I've included the photo of the two hawks with talons locked...They were really high in the sky so I don't know if the photo will give you a sense of what was happening.  In one of the in-flight photos you can see the new band on the hawk.........Johngarp

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Don. Susan, I'm very excited that our female redtail will be back in the area. Hopefully she'll resettle in her new nest or the old one which is still intact in the tree outside my window.

Reports from Susan Moses (Tufts)

I just left you a voice message that the female red-tail will be released tomorrow!  I'm picking her up around 11:30 AM.  Someone at the Department of Fish & Wildlife called me regarding the eggs (since they are protected).  He gave me the name of someone in the evolutionary biology department  (Jeremiah Trimble) who has a permit, and I've left him a message to see if he wants them.  
 
Feel free to give me a call (617-645-1615).
 
Should be interesting.  I hope her mate takes her back and that she doesn't have to fight off the new female he's been hanging out with.
 
-Susan
 
***
 
Hi Don-
 
Good to know the camera is still there, and interesting that the eggs are there as well.

If all goes well, I think she will be released back to her territory.  They're going to let me know because they mentioned something about me going to pick her up!  I was going to ask them if we should remove the eggs if they are still there since that could be confusing for her and she might try to go back to sitting on them to no avail - so I'll let you know.

I am also going to ask what will happen if her mate has already paired with a new female - will he go back to his original mate if she shows up?  If not, what will happen to her?  I have seen him hanging out in various places and have seen him flying with another hawk, but as I mentioned before, I'm not sure if the second hawk is another adult or a juvenile since I couldn't see its tail clearly.

Either way, I'm so happy she has recovered.  The timing of her injury was especially unfortunate, but such is life.  And it seems red-tails are getting into all sorts of trouble this year.  I don't know if you've heard about the red-tails at Tufts who attacked a man.  Someone had approached the nest which was on a fire escape and the defense mechanism kicked in. Don't know if this guy was the guy who got too close or whether he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The sad thing is that the female was captured and her two chicks were taken away and the nest was removed.  Sometimes people cause the problems.

And our poor female red-tail at 185 Alewife Brook Parkway has been fighting her own demons.  She has three chicks in her nest, and somehow got spooked and has been crashing into the windows of the building at a frenetic pace.  She is seeing her reflection and thinks it's an intruder.  It is heartbreaking to watch and we're scared she will hurt herself.  But there is nothing we can do but hope she gets over whatever is causing her to do this.

Once you get involved with these hawks it's hard to walk away!

So, hopefully I'll have some good news soon.  Stay-tuned...