Nesting Hawks Slow Down MVHS Project

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A small portion of the work at the Moapa Valley High School football stadium came to a sudden halt last month when workers made to an unexpected discovery.

As crews began to make preparation to replace the stadium lighting system they found a pair of nesting red-tail hawks at the top of one of the tall lightposts of the stadium.

Logandale resident Rod Leavitt is the President of Wheeler Electric, the contractor hired by the Clark County School District to install new LED lighting at all high school football stadiums throughout the district. This project is part of a larger plan to renovate all the stadiums including bringing new artificial turf to all the football fields.

Leavitt said that his crew has been working its way through all thirty of the high schools in the region.
“We were pretty much down to our last three schools: Moapa Valley, Virgin Valley and Laughlin,” Leavitt said. “And right here at home is where we got delayed a bit.”

Leavitt said that his crews arrived on site at MVHS in early March and didn’t know anything about the nest located at the top of the pole on the southeast corner of the stadium.

“It was actually some high school kids that brought it to our attention,” Leavitt said. “They had seen (the birds) coming and going and told us that they thought there might be birds up there.”

The crew arranged to send a small drone aircraft up to take a look. Sure enough, there was a pair of nesting hawks incubating three eggs in a maintenance cage located at the top of the pole.

“They had built the nest right on the foot of that cage, so there was no way around it,” Leavitt said.
The crew immediately contacted the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) who told them there wasn’t much that could be done about it. The work would have to be put on hold until the chicks had grown enough to fly away and the nest had been abandoned.

In an interview with The Progress, NDOW Wildlife Education Coordinator Jess Brooks explained that this was not just an NDOW rule, but was part of an international treaty.

Brooks said that the Wheeler Electric team had done exactly what was supposed to be done in keeping a distance from these majestic birds.

“All migrating birds are protected,” Brooks said. “As soon as they nest and lay eggs it is unlawful to move the eggs or the nest, or to harrass the birds at all. Not until the chicks and the adult birds leave the nest can it be dismantled and the work continue.”

Brooks explained that red-tailed hawks have one clutch of chicks per year which can include anywhere from one to five eggs. The eggs can take 4-5 weeks to hatch. Then the chicks stay with the nest for another 6-7 weeks in the care of their parents.

Brooks said that she didn’t blame the parent hawks a bit for choosing that sheltered spot at the top of the pole. Though, she did say that hawks, which always work in partnership on building a nest, usually choose the top of a tree as their nesting spot. More remote locations like that are more common, rather than the noisy areas like this one around a high school stadium.

But it is likely that this year lent some unique factors to the birds’ decision, Brooks said. “Because of COVID, things might have been less busy in that area,” Brooks said. “And that spot is a wonderful opportunity with a great view of the surrounding hunting grounds. It would be prime real estate for hawks.”

Last week, the Wheeler Electric crew sent another drone up the pole to check again on the status of the nest. Instead of the three eggs encountered previously, the photos caught three puffy little chicks waiting patiently in the nest for their next meal.

“The parents spend their time hunting and bring the chicks food,” Brooks said. “One interesting fact is that only the mother will actually feed the chicks. The father will bring food to the nest, but he won’t feed them himself.”

Brooks said that the chicks would eventually be ready to try to fly from the nest and go out on their own.
“It will actually be a fascinating opportunity to watch,” Brooks said. “Eventually if people keep a close eye, they might be able to watch the first flight from the nest.”

Once the chicks have taken to the skies for the first time, people might see the hawks doing additional practice flight maneuvers: hunting, circling, diving and more.

Of course, not every first flight attempt ends in success. Occasionally a chick jumps from the nest and ends up falling to the ground. But the chicks are equipped for this and the fall doesn’t usually hurt them.

“If they don’t get it right on the first try, they will just hang out on the ground there close by,” Brooks said. “But if that happens people should just leave the chicks alone. They can take care of themselves and their parents are still caring for them, even though you might not see them.”

Once the chicks are able to fly, they don’t stick around. And in this case, the adults probably won’t stay very long either.

“If the nest is in a good, quiet spot, adult hawks can sometimes stay with it until late fall,” Brooks said. “But in this case, since things are kind of busy in that area, they are likely to leave shortly after the chicks are gone and find someplace else. Hawks rarely choose the same nesting spot twice.”

In the meantime, the six-man crew from Wheeler Electric has done what it could. They have worked to install the new lights on the other three poles at the stadium. They will have to return later to finish the job. That return, with all the equipment needed, does add some cost to the project, Leavitt said.
“Ah well, you can never win,” he laughed. “We will just have to bring everyone back to finish it another day.”