Arrival of Nesting Hawks

Earlier in the week I mentioned the return of our hawks. Once I heard the call in the woods, I decided it was time to take the feeders down - we have copious black capped chickadees, cardinals, titmice, woodpeckers of all kinds, house sparrows, and even a pair of wrens, in the woods around us, and all of them are prey for these kinds of hawks.

So to give everybody a sporting chance of making it through spring, we take down the feeders and move to throwing handfulls on the ground and near sources of cover. Last year, after I learned that bears sometimes move through the hollow in the spring, I decided that was a second reason to take the feeders down, as the seeds are attractive forage for them as well.

I also wanted to write a little more about what I saw the hawks doing last weekend, since one of the activities was surprising and a new one. First, there was the more routine activity though, of the male bird bringing food to the nesting female. After the nestlings hatch, he'll bring it to the nest - but for now, when he has the prey, he'll make a call from a tree that is about 100 yards away from the nest, and the female will fly to him to collect the food and eat.

I remembered seeing this a few times last year, but now I've put the whole behavior together, between his call, his perch, and her flight out of the nest to him.

The second item of interest was quite surprising. I heard a terrible noise the other morning, one I'd never heard before; suddenly a crow flying erratically appeared above the house. There is a flock of about 6 crows in the area that I see all the time.

Apparently, this one had gotten too close for the hawks' comfort, and the male was chasing him off. The bird was making calls that I don't ever remember hearing from a crow - they were very loud and sounding like cries for help. Between the noises and the fluttering flight it was quite a show, but I'm not convinced the crow was in danger, as the male hawks from both the sharp shinned and Cooper's species are only about as big as a crow. As soon as the crow was out of the nest's vicinity, the chase broke off.

Last year I saw him chase blue jays off a few times, but I never put it together that this wasn't necessarily hunting - it's protecting the nest. The incident with the crow helped me understand what's going on there.

I was happy for the breakfast show and variety of activities, though, and with good weather forecast this weekend, maybe we'll see a bit more wildlife action around the cabin.