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

what an amazing story Ralph!

In 2018 I was part of a scouting group for a goshawk research effort. 

In late winter we stationed ourselves in deep woods before dawn to see if we heard goshawks as they returned to potential breeding territory.

I did hear a barred owl during those cold dark hours.

Since a goshawk was heard by a teammate, we left the territory so as not to interfere with breeding.

I wondered if the owl and goshawk could breed and co-exist.

Sounds like maybe...or maybe not!

Cathie Murray

Hallowell

On Sunday, February 21, 2021 at 5:28:20 PM UTC-5 RALPH ELDRIDGE wrote:

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

 

 

--
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/maine-birds/94383997-ca2c-45df-939c-a3ebbd7f5511n%40googlegroups.com.