Hi all -- Cool thread. I watched a drama in October of 1979 off of Cape Ann, MA in a Woods Hole Research Vessel. An American Robin was flying alongside our ship but was too skittish to land aboard. It was clearly tired. Each time it swerved closer to the ship some movement on board convinced it to remain airborne.
Then I saw that two Herring Gulls were closing in on this Robin from behind, cruising on the stiff wind and waiting for their moment. The Robin hit the ocean surface briefly out of what appeared to me sheer fatigue. But as the gulls closed in for the catch, the bird exploded back into flight. Both the landing and the re-launch stunned me, considering this is not a waterproof bird. We left the drama in our wake, and I have to presume that one of the gulls had a lunch shortly afterward.
Best,
Craig K
On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Raven Watcher <ravenwatcher@gmail.com> wrote:
--Freeport MEDan NickersonI 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.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.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.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.Hello All,Birding a boat launch on the Androscoggin River in Lewiston near the treatment plant:
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.
--Dan's Natural History Blog:
Ravenwatcher
"An Eye on the Natural World"
http://ravenwatcher.blogspot.com
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