[Maine-birds] Re: Upside-down Red-tailed Hawk

I once saw a Great Horned Owl flip under its perch to avoid a strike from a Goshawk.

The owl had gotten too close to the Goshawk's nest. 

Between passes by the hawk, the owl released its grip, dropped a few feet, righted itself and exited the area.

In this particular case the owl and the hawk had nests no more than 100 yards apart. Although the owl started (and finished) nesting much earlier than the hawk, there was still enough overlap  in their seasons to create lots of "border incidents".

In spite of the conflicts, both nests fledged two healthy youngsters.

On Sunday, 21 February 2021 at 17:23:35 UTC-4 Becky Marvil wrote:

Just after 3pm today, we were driving on Route 1 past Exit 17 (of I-295) when we spotted a RTHA hanging upside-down in a tree.  Not able to stop because of traffic behind us, we drove on past and turned around.  As we were heading back to the bird, I dialed Avian Haven, but only got a voice message.  As we drove back by the bird, we could see that it was now right-side up, perched on a branch (in nearly the same location, we think).  We turned around again to see if its leg was caught somehow, but this time as we approached it flew off and seemed fine.

 

I googled whether others have reported such a behavior and the link I found suggested that it might have perched on a too-thin branch and was not able to grip well enough so it flipped over.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts about this behavior?

 

Becky

 

Becky Marvil

Yarmouth, ME

 

 

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