It has begun. The weather has definitely turned, and the birds appear to be on the move and along with all of the migrating birds come their predators migrating right beside them.
There are now more predatory birds across the landscape than one will find at any other time of the year. With the breeding season over, and migration getting under way, the numbers can only diminish either by mortality or movement.
I have picked up on this subtle change in what may be an equally subtle way. As I sat in the house last weekend, both on that oppressive Saturday, with its horrendous humidity, or on Sunday, which was about as great a turnaround from Saturday as you could hope to see, I heard the occasional burst of wings from the area of my deck. This was not the sound of hawk wings, but rather the wings of large groups of birds being startled into action by the appearance, or simply by the threat of the appearance, of a hawk.
The little birds are nervous, and with so many eyes open and scanning the horizon for the approach of death, it is difficult for a hawk to catch anyone unawares. However, nervousness tends to generate false panic, which in turn can generate fatigue. False alarms and the endless strain of searching for danger can eventually wear down the wits of small birds, a condition that almost any predator would welcome.
Three weekends ago, on Labor Day itself, I was in a position to watch one of these interactions between would-be predator and would-be prey. I was, as has become fairly routine at this point, down in the thinking chair and trying to add birds to my list for September. There wasn’t a great deal of activity, and it was clear that a big change in the community of the birds was underway. Then, quite suddenly, a blue jay burst into the loud panicked scream of “jay jay jay” that unmistakably communicates danger.
I looked toward the direction of the alarm and I had time to catch sight of a blue jay diving into the white pine stand on the western edge of my yard. Then, at the top of one of the dead trees near the head of the meadow, I caught the movement of something quite different.
It was a hawk, and after a moment’s consideration, I decided it was a sharp-shinned hawk.
The bird was trying to get comfortable on its perch when its head snapped to the south to follow the movement of an American goldfinch that was in midair well away from the cover of any trees. The hawk didn’t hesitate to launch itself in the direction of the goldfinch, but even I could tell that it had no chance of catching the smaller bird. That did not prevent it from trying, however, which reinforced the idea that this was a juvenile hawk.
The goldfinch must certainly have been alarmed, but it seemed quite capable of maintaining a safe distance between itself and the hawk. In fairly short order, the raptor broke off the chase and circled back to the dead tree. I have no doubt that the goldfinch gave itself a royal chewing out for even letting the hawk get as close as it did. Duck and cover would have been a much safer strategy. Perhaps this, too, was a sign of youth and inexperience.
Had the hawk been a falcon then there might have been a different outcome, because falcons are pursuit hunters. They find a target on the wing and simply catch up to them in flight. This does not work particularly well in woodland areas, however, and that’s where a group of hawks called “accipiters” excel. These slender, maneuverable predators are certainly capable of pursuit (particularly through dense brush), but their real specialty is in ambush.
There are three birds that fall into the accipiter group and they are (from smallest to largest) the sharp-shinned hawk, the Cooper’s hawk and the northern goshawk. I see the first two species on an annual basis, but the goshawk is one of those species for which a sighting is a very rare and wonderful thing, at least for me.
Eventually, the young hawk got bored and moved on. There is no point in sitting and attempting to ambush a group of birds that have been alerted to your presence, so accipiters tend to be restless birds. The youngster took flight and made a large, sweeping circle before heading off to the east to create panic and havoc elsewhere. I managed to get one good photo of the bird in flight and it showed the diagnostic squared-off tail of a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk; a beautiful bird that still has a little time to hone its hunting skills before winter makes life difficult for everyone.
Bill Danielson has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and the Massachusetts State Parks. He has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 19 years and he also teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.