More This & That - 2

A few more "un-themed" birds from Wakodahatchee and Green Cay - all friends who have returned, or will return soon, to my Vermont neighborhood.

Red-winged Blackbird

(Western/Brown) Palm Warbler

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Blue-headed Vireo

Pine Warbler

Northern Harrier - female

Good Birding ! !

Hunting the Marsh

On my return from Cape May, I detoured to the refuge road at Forsyth NWR. A Northern Harrier (adult female) treated my to a hunting display over the marsh.

Good Birding!!

Cape May Birds of Prey

The Cape May Fall Out on October 29 and 30 produced a smorgasbord for hawks. The small birds were everywhere, and the hawks were after them. One person I met started the day by seeing a kestrel at one end of a power line feeding on a yellow-rump, and a Merlin on the other end feeding on a yellow-rump. I was glad I did not have a feather in my hat, lest a sharpie or coops mistake me for food. A couple of sharpies came so close on their dive that I almost felt the rush of air as they dove after prey.

Cape May is one of the premier hawk watch and count sites in the world. Thousands of raptors pass over the watch tower every year. Almost every place I went, I saw birds of prey.

They are not easy birds to photograph, but on those couple of October days, I had many opportunities to practice. Here are a few images.

Red-tailed Hawk

Peregrine Falcon

Northern Harrier - juvenile

Bald Eagle - second year

Sharp-shinned Hawk - juvenile with full crop

Northern Harrier

Good birding!

Attitude

Sharp-shinned Hawk

“There are two birds up there,” said the hawk watcher.

The visitor stared at the sky in the direction the hawk watcher was looking. “Oh yes, I see them.” The smaller bird dove toward the larger one, both swirled rapidly, each seeming to attack the other in rapid succession.

“They’re Sharp-shinned Hawks,” said the hawk watcher. “Male and female.”

“How in the world can you tell?” asked the visitor.

“The males are smaller than the females. He’s weighs about as much as a quarter pounder. She’s almost twice as big.”

“Okay, but how do you even know they’re sharpies?”

“When we see one hawk attack another hawk, it is almost always a sharpie. We look for other clues, like a small head and a long thin tail. But sharpies have an attitude; they’ll go after anything. We’ve even seen them harass an eagle. That’s what sharpies often do.”

Cooper's Hawk harassing Bald Eagle

A conversation of this sort is repeated several times on the Putney ridge during the hawk watch season. One of the best clues these hawk watchers use to identify a small, distant hawk, is the “attitude” which compels harassment of another hawk.

Harassment of one bird by another bird is usually a defensive technique. Blue Jays are especially noted for the way they will mob a hawk. In late August, I watched as jays screamed their displeasure and made continuous mock attacks on a young Sharp-shinned Hawk. The hawk in turn made ineffectual attempts to chase the jays. Blue jays are frequent targets of the accipiters and there is good reason for their alarm when a hawk is in the neighborhood.

Eastern Kingbird

I have watched the Eastern Kingbird attack anything which intruded on its nesting territory, regardless of size. I watched a small mixed flock of woodpeckers and song birds go after a Barred Owl on a wintry morning. Crows are often seen along an interstate harassing a Red-tailed Hawk which wants to do nothing but stay perched until it sees a mouse moving in the grass. And I’ll never forget seeing a Red-winged Blackbird pecking on the back of a hapless Turkey Vulture as it laboriously tried to get airborne on a cool morning.

Protection of nesting territory and proactive protection against a potential predator accounts for most of this behavior. But I must admit that I am at a loss to explain the feistiness of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, especially since so many are young hatch year birds. Is there genetic encoding which is protecting against territorial intrusion. Is there an attempt to take prey on the wing? Or is there a preemptive attack to prevent becoming prey? Sharp-shins are small hawks, and they are preyed upon by larger hawks, even their cousin, the Cooper’s Hawk.

A few years ago, I read a daily report from a hawk watch site in southeastern Michigan. It was a slow day for the hawks. The hawk watchers were happy when a Sharp-shinned Hawk was sighted. As it worked its way southward, it was duly counted. Then a Peregrine Falcon suddenly dove on the sharpie, grabbed it in mid-air, and began to feed as it continued to fly. The sharpie was taken off the count list; the Peregrine was added.

Merlin

Sharp-shinned Hawks are not the only raptors with attitude. Pete Dunne (in Hawks in Flight) describes the sharpie as feisty, but when writing about the Merlin he uses adjectives like aggressive, pugnacious, and intolerant. The Merlin is a falcon only slightly larger than the kestrel. But where the kestrel is a waif on the wind, the Merlin is compact, powerful, and fast.

Dunne writes of the Merlin: “They will go out of their way to harass a bird that crosses into their territory or occupies their airspace. Since Merlins seem just as easily provoked during migration as at any other time of year, a Merlin’s territory may be inferred to be wherever it happens to find itself.” He continues on their attitude: “Merlins are usually solitary (because they have a bad disposition) and will frequently go out of their way to harass other birds in migration .... At Cape May, high-flying Merlins are usually detected because they are harassing another raptor.”

Cooper's Hawk harassing Northern Harrier

The Northen Harrier is a rather benign raptor. It sweeps and glides above a field or a marsh, a gentle and harmless raptor except to the mice it is hunting. It doesn’t bother others. But that doesn’t spare it from harassment.

Early this week I watched a young harrier passing over the hawk watch site at Lighthouse Point where the Connecticut River enters Long Island Sound. The harrier’s presence provoked the ire of a young female Cooper’s Hawk. She dove at the young harrier.

The match-up was like putting a lanky wide receiver with no speed whatsoever, against a beefy linebacker. The harrier has the longer wing span, but gram for gram the two birds weigh about the same. She dove at him, attacking him from the rear with her talons down. Then she did it again, and again. The poor harrier youngster flew from her wrath as quickly as he could, which is not very quickly. As speedsters go, the harrier is a tortoise.
    Was the Cooper’s overly optimistic, thinking she could somehow snatch the harrier and have a generous meal? Or did she simply have an attitude, taking offense at the harrier’s presence in her presence and driving him from her airspace? Whatever the reason, it happened less than a hundred feet above my head.
    Attitude. It’s not very pleasant when you have to deal with another person who has it. But when watching hawks, it makes for some great hawk watching.

Lighthouse Point Hawk Watch

Sunday I visited the hawk watch at Lighthouse Point (where the Connecticut River enters Long Island Sound) - an excellent morning with many low flying hawks and good photo ops. Here are a few samples:

Sharp-shinned Hawk (adult)

Northern Harrier (juvenile) harassed by Cooper's Hawk (juvenile)

Cooper's Hawk (juvenile)

Red-shouldered Hawk (juvenile Eastern)

Red-shouldered Hawk (juvenile Eastern)

Good birding!

Snow Geese at Dead Creek, Snow Bunting on Putney Mtn

Last Sunday, we made the annual pilgrimage to Dead Creek WMA for the Snow Geese, meeting other friends from Brattleboro, and as always in a small state like Vermont, meeting other birders we know from around the state - in this case, Ted Murin (co-author of Birdwatching in Vermont) who was scouring Lake Champlain with his celestial scope in search of migrating sea ducks and pelagics.

At the WMA, the geese were feeding far from the viewing area, but occasionally a few came over at a relatively low altitude.

Then something would spook the geese, (a passing Peregrine, harrier or eagle perhaps) and two or three thousand birds suddenly took flight, darkening the horizon with their numbers.

Pipits and several species of sparrows worked the grasses along with a few Pectoral Sandpipers . We were surprised at how few raptors we saw - a single perched Peregrine, and this young Northern Harrier ...

Good company, and a glorious late October day, augmented the birding ...

Coser to home, Tuesday was my day on Putney Mountain - dismal gray day with no hawks flying. But when I arrived at the viewing area, this Snow Bunting was there to greet me. Seems early for these true snow birds, but it is a reminder of what is soon to come ...


And a technology note: I have been losing confidence in my computer, either because Microsoft kept "updating" Vista, or because the equipment was getting worn. So I spent a chunk of this week shopping, buying, and setting up a whole new system. It went well - at least as well as can be expected when using a Microsoft OS (Windows 7) - not seamless, by any means (after all, I am talking Microsoft!) - but okay. I say this, knowing full well that MAC users are nodding in smugness. What can I say? And BTW, the new monitor greatly improves the quality of photographs - when I look at your photographs, they are greatly improved, while my photographs really rock!!

This also means, that my usual post of the weekly column may be slightly delayed from its usual Saturday at 6AM. But soon.

Good birding!