Big Hungry Birds: 1 Pigeons: 0

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

So I looked out my bedroom window late this afternoon to see who was at the bird feeder in my yard and what my Cirque du Soleil squirrels were getting up to in the snow. Whoa! Instead of the usual mix of house sparrows, cardinals and starlings, there was this guy sitting on his kill just ten feet away. I've had the occasional pigeon here, pecking at drops from the bird feeder, but they are not typical. Have had a pair of mourning doves hanging around recently and I have to admit I am glad it was not one of them (love their call and the weird squeaking noise they make when they take off; also their pair bonding).

This was a bit shocking to see at first – have only seen one hawk here before, and then just on the fly in a failed swooping attack. Have had a few cat kills recently which I have not been so happy about (though not because I think cats should be kept indoors but only that I don't want to be maintaining a honeypot to attract  prey for their amusement). This guy was big, though I guess in hawk-world they are mid-sized but this close he seemed huge – body the size of a football. I tapped on the window and made some noise to try to get him to turn around but aside from a bit of head movement he wasn't going anywhere.

After a while he proceeded to tear the pigeon apart. What was eerie (though not surprising) was the complete absence of any other creatures. Usually there are all sorts of comings and goings but I guess word was out on the small creature network.

And that's the way it is...from this nature preserve behind KickAss Cupcakes.

Comments

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

My parents always told me that they can't have a bird feeder because they have indoor/outdoor cats and didn't want to make a cat feeder.

That said, this circle of life post is appreciated. Always good to see a bird of prey getting a good meal, bird feeder or no.

[squirrelitude]

And there's the friend-of-a-friend who puts out small-bird seed so that he can feed the raptors... :-P

(I would think that pigeon food would work better, personally.)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I see these hawks in and around my back yard and balcony. One morning I went out and it appeared a pigeon had "exploded" in my potted chives and sage. Someone found a meal! (and even seasoned it, apparently. :-)

[allison l. (from livejournal.com)]

LOL!

[i-leonardo.livejournal.com]

wow, thanks for sharing that !

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting this cool photo!

Below is a photo I took of the same hawk, I believe, on January 4. The fence where it is perched is right near my window bird feeder and I do put some seed on the ground as well (there has been a small flock of juncos this winter and they are strictly ground feeders). I have seen this hawk flying through the tree canopy (such as it is) in the backyards around here a number of times.

ETA: I live on the other side of the Square, behind Hodgkins Park.

FWIW, I believe this is a red-tail hawk, perhaps a juvenile, but not a Cooper's hawk. Based on my "study" of the Audubon Field Guide and various sites online, it seems there are a number of sub-breeds (not the correct technical term) of red-tails that don't necessarily have the red tail. On the other hand, Cooper's hawks look completely different.

I've never gotten a good look but I think I've seen kestrels a few times around here as well.

(http://thanny2000.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/443/551)

[mamabunny72.livejournal.com]

My daughter and I saw a hawk perched way up in a tree behind our neighbor's house. We are a few blocks from Hodgkins; maybe we saw this one. It was hard to tell from the distance. Cool sighting.

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

It probably was the same one! One of my sightings was when I was walking past the park and heard the bluejays making a ruckus. I looked up and saw the hawk flying off towards the bike path and Mass Ave.

Apropos to hawks and bluejays, I haven't heard it much this winter (maybe once) but there was a bluejay that visited my feeder that would make an imitation hawk sound, presumably to scare off the other birds from eating the coveted peanuts!

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

Great photo! I don't know birds so I just guessed it was a Cooper's based on some photos on the interwebs. It did look a lot like your photo. Also, had never heard of juncos before – are these about the size of sparrows? If so I've had these too – thought they were younger, less beat up sparrows... ;-) Sadly, not too much variety birdwise here – a few chicadees, a woodpecker once but I think the sparrows put them off.

[medyani.livejournal.com]

I, too, think it's a juvenile red-tail that stuck around for the winter. Cornell has a great bird identification website that is helpful:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-tailed_hawk/id

Dark-eyed Juncos (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/id) are a type of sparrow that are easy to identify with their white bellies and dark grey "overcoats." While some are year round residents, their numbers increase dramatically each winter when many migrate down from the Boreal forest. They feed in mixed songbird flocks.

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

Thanks for providing the links. The juncos seem to show up with the house sparrows but I didn't remember that they are a sparrow variety too. With their dark overcoats, it is amazing how well they are camouflaged on the ground.

Regarding the hawk, I looked again at the Wikipedia entry and noticed some details that I missed previously but seem to confirm the theory that this is a juvenile. The entry said that adult red-tails have red eyes and the juveniles have amber eyes that darken as they age. The Wikipedia page also indicates that the dark bars on the tail feathers signifies that the bird is a juvenile.

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

I don't know how long you've been feeding the birds but I think it took me until the second winter to see much variety. The other thing I've noticed is that a lot of my regular visitors will eat the other seed but the peanuts are the primo lure. So much so that I started buying dry roasted unsalted peanuts and putting them out.

I haven't seen any house finches this winter which has been puzzling.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

I've been feeding the birds for about a year (since my oldster cat died – didn't want to before that for the 'cat feeder' reasons). I put out unsalted peanuts in the shell for the squirrels – have seen a few of the occasional larger birds (jays, grackles, starlings) take those on but they are not regular visitors. For seed I use the cheapster Petco mix and add black oil sunflower seeds.

It's fun and has made me very curious about bird (and squirrel) feeding habits. They seem to be on very regular timetables.

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

Funny, I started feeding the birds to give my indoor-only Siamese boy some distraction since I work from home regularly! The other thing that lured me was observing cardinal fledglings being fed by the dad. I don't do the whole bird feeder routine in the summer but last year I kept putting out peanuts. I got to see at least the woodpecker, cardinal and blue jay babies being fed the peanuts by their parents. I have also gotten more interested in the squirrels and empathetic about what a tough living wild animals have compared to us.

They do seem to have regular hours here too. My cardinals almost always come at dusk although I will also see them earlier in the day too. A lot of the birds have me trained, in that if they hit the feeder and there aren't peanuts and I'm at my desk, I'll put more out while they wait on a nearby branch.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that one looks like a red tail, but the OP's visitor looks very much like a Cooper's - it has the long slim tail that the larger red tail doesn't. The banding on the tail, body shape, etc., also different. I've seen a Cooper's around here before - came around and scared all the little birds in my backyard :D /birdnerd

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

I defer to your greater knowledge! :-) I have never, that I know of, seen a Cooper's hawk and at least in photographs the adult birds look quite different than the red-tailed hawks. When I look at serious_noir's photo again more closely, I can see that at the very least it's probably not the same bird because the bars on the tail look different. Also I think the subject of my photograph looked bigger than a football, which is how serious_noir described the size of the first bird.

Very enjoyable discussion for me, thanks to all of you! Cheers.

[mamabunny72.livejournal.com]

Speaking or mourning doves, we see a pair near our house every spring and summer. Last year, a pair built a nest in a tree in front of our house; our daughter could see it from her window. Sadly, a few days after the nest sighting, I found a small broken egg right under the tree. It was the only egg in the nest as I didn't see any doves return, and about a week later the nest fell from the tree.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

I was in a meeting last week in my office in Waltham and we had been chatting about our local wildlife sightings when a hawk swoops in and lands on a branch right outside our window. We watch as he takes off and returns about 3 minutes later with lunch. Pretty small meal, so we were thinking mouse or something similar sized. Not as dramatic as the rat and squirrel feasts the big hawks I observed at Tufts in the past were having, but always interesting to watch nature in action.

[thanny2000.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who just moved to Waltham, near the river, in January and she sent me a photo of a bald eagle that was in a tree outside their kitchen!