Very cool! About 30 years ago I saw a Spotted Sandpiper do exactly the same thing off of Lobster Cove on Monhegan when it was being chased by a Merlin.
Jeff Wells
From: maine-birds@googlegroups.com [mailto:maine-birds@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Raven Watcher
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2015 11:42 AM
To: Maine Birds
Subject: [Maine-birds] Cool Move by Spotted Sandpiper
Hello All,
Birding a boat launch on the Androscoggin River in Lewiston near the treatment plant:
An adult probable female (large) Cooper's Hawk powers upstream along the shore not 20 feet in front of me. I follow it with my bins up the shoreline. A Spotted Sandpiper in its flight path launches itself from the shore and dives into the river.
A second later after the Coop passes it pops up out of the water, for a second looking like a phalarope on the water and then flies downstream away from the hawk. It takes a few awkward wingbeats to lose the load of water on its feathers and then transitions into its usual quivering downward strokes and heads downstream away from the hawk.
A few minutes later the Cooper's Hawk comes back down the shore and goes after a crow. A few minutes after that several crows go over and the Cooper's Hawk again heads upstream at a slightly lower level than the crows. One crow decides to take on the Coop and very quickly the hawk reverses the roles and the crow decides to bail out of the game. The Coop continues upstream along the shore flushing a Belted Kingfisher out of the trees but passes on a chase.
Throughout all of this a Great Blue Heron resting on the shore seemed to remain unperturbed as did two Mallards. Though they did seem to move closer to the Great Blue.
I have never seen this sort of evasive behavior on the part of a shorebird. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. Stuff like this is why I love birding.
Dan Nickerson
Freeport ME
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