(no subject)

[hummingwolf]

For well over an hour, a hawk has been in the tree outside my window, enthusiastically making a meal out of a squirrel. Is it a Cooper's Hawk? A Sharp-Shinned Hawk? Something else entirely? All this time of watching it and I still don't know what to tell you. At birdwatching, I'm still quite pathetic. Obviously what ever this bird is, it's something which might be found in the DC area pulling squirrels' guts apart.

A little while ago, another squirrel stood on a nearby tree limb angrily chattering at the bird. The bird took time out of its meal to give it a look saying, "You have got to be kidding me." Of course that was pretty much the same expression the bird always has.

It's a beautiful bird if you can get over its dining habits.

Comments

[lingmao.livejournal.com]

If you have it narrowed down to an accipiter, it's almost certainly a Cooper's Hawk. The Sharp-Shinned is a smaller and more gracile bird than the Cooper's and would have real difficulty handling anything as large as a squirrel.

It sounds like a nice sighting. I never get tired of watching hawks.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

One reason I'm so bad at birdwatching is that I really am not very good at judging sizes (or distances). What I ended up doing was looking for sites to tell me which hawklike birds are likely to be seen in Maryland this time of year, then looking at photos of them to try to narrow things down. Fortunately, the hawk took long enough eating its meal for me to visit lots of different websites while it was here. Since this bird was definitely large enough to enjoy a squirrel dinner, I'll take your word on the identification!

It was certainly a beautiful bird.

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

I'm of the opinino that it's really cool to watch kestrels eat - they'll only eat while flying, so it's rather difficult.

*My* problem with raptors' feeding habits is, well, the decoration. I dislike intestines being used as garlands. Plus they're a bitch to scrape off of concrete.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Mmm... intestines. Fortunately, I've never had to clean guts off the concrete--yesterday's raptor was kind enough to fling things onto the grass in an area where most of the housemates don't bother to go much. If any significant parts of dead squirrel got left behind, they've probably been eaten by other critters already.

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the difference between a zoo and your backyard.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I hope that isn't the only difference between a zoo and my backyard. If it is, I seem to have been missing something.

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

Having not seen your backyard during the day... but yes, of course.

Still - you don't have to clean up the intestines because the hawk isn't going to be eating there tommorrow, or the day after, or the day after... and that *is* the salient point about a zoo: it's an environment which is artifically maintained at a much higher population density than is possible naturally, which means constant maintenance is necessary.