Chasin' squirrels...
Merle and Marsha Hall
This guy showed up in our neighbor's
backyard yesterday morning. Marsha saw him and I grabbed the
camera and followed him around up and down the alley. He kept
trying to catch a squirrel, any squirrel, but was never
successful. I bet he tried six or eight times and failed every
time.
Immature Sharp-shinned Hawk, best I
can tell from the description on the Cornell site: " Very
thick, rufous stripes that extend down the lower belly are a
good indication of Sharp-shinned Hawk, and very thin, dark
streaks that fade away on the lower belly are a good
indication of Cooper’s Hawk." and "The size of the head
relative to the body can be a reliable field mark....usually a
Sharp-shinned Hawk’s head looks small, and a Cooper’s Hawk’s
head looks large. Sharp-shinned Hawks appear short-necked;
Cooper’s Hawks appear tall." Though it also says Sharp-shinned
are smaller than a crow and this guy was bigger than that.
I didn't get any great photos. These
are pretty cropped as I tried to stay far enough away so as to
not interfere. Would've liked to get one of him and the
squirrel, but missed. At one point, he was up and down on the
other side of a small berm and came to rest where he is in
that photo with the Hosta leaves. At that point, the squirrel
comes out from behind a parked car and saunters by not ten
feet from him. He just sat there. Maybe he was just practicing? The Cornell
description says their diet is mainly small birds, so who
knows. These were probably young squirrels, but they had him
beat.
Merle
Clayton Will
We had a faceoff some years ago on the back fence between our Red-shouldered Hawk (who was a regular for two Winters) and one of the many Fox Squirrels! The squirrels usually ran the top of the fence. It would repeatedly bluff charge the hawk, then stand and scold! The Red-shouldered was unphased! Caught it on video and after five minutes the squirrel disappeared over the fence! Nature is fascinating!
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Merle and Marsha Hall
Meant to let folks know that the ID has been corrected to Immature Female Cooper's Hawk.
Merle