It is sometimes easy to forget that the beautiful birds that come to our feeders in the winter are always (and I mean always) fighting to stay alive. Freshly fallen snow may look nice from inside the house, but it represents a real problem for the animals that have to deal with it. Food becomes more difficult to find and rummaging around in the snow while looking for food requires contact with the extremely cold snow itself. Getting through the day, one day after another, is no easy feat.
Then you compound the problems of survival by remembering to include the fact that even as the little birds are trying to stay warm and find enough food, there are also larger birds that are literally trying to kill them. Sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper’s hawks are faced with their own struggles for survival and for them to keep living somebody else has to die. As a result, there are amazing dramas that unfold in all of our back yards that (for the most part) transpire without notice. This is an account of one of these events that I just happened to observe due to pure luck.
I had filled the feeders at dawn, then again at about 8 a.m. and all I saw was snow on the deck. When I went out at 9 a.m., however, I noticed something new. Over by my grill, which I keep close against the house during the winter, I saw a mourning dove sitting on the snow. This was highly unusual because mourning doves are flighty and are quick to fly at the slightest provocation. My presence should have sent this bird off like a rocket.
But this bird hadn’t flown and in just two-three seconds I saw that it hadn’t flown because it couldn’t. A pitiful attempt to take to the air showed that this bird had an injured wing. I suspected a collision with one of my windows, although I hadn’t heard anything. Nonetheless, this bird was grounded and although I did briefly consider trying to catch the dove, I gave up on that idea almost instantly. This bird was healthy and I would never be able to catch it.
So I went inside, sat down at my writing table and started watching the bird. A regular at my deck it clearly knew were the food was and there were lilac bushes just beyond the railing that could allow the bird to get down to the ground. Then it was just a short walk to a thick stand of spruce trees where it could shelter at night. Perhaps a day or two of recuperation was all the dove needed.
I looked down for a moment so I could record this observation in my journal and when I looked up again I immediately noticed a change. The mourning dove had moved to an odd choice of position on the deck and a chickadee was sitting in one of the lilac bushes and not moving. I call this posture a “statue” pose and it usually indicates the presence of a predator nearby. A moment later my interpretation of the scene was proven correct.
Flying in from the north came the familiar shape of an immature Cooper’s hawk. The bird was flying low over the ground and had to make a beautiful maneuver to fly up and over the lilac bushes while also tucking its wings to get through a gap in the branches of the cottonwood tree. Once through this opening the hawk dove toward the deck boards and disappeared down a flight of stairs. There is absolutely no way that the hawk noticed the mourning dove sitting there, and the hawk actually passed the dove without even flinching.
Unfortunately for the dove, panic took over and the dove flinched. The hawk was already passed it, but the dove attempted to fly away to safety and seemed to forget that it couldn’t fly. The result was a lopsided flap and a plummet to the ground. I lost sight of the dove at that point, but I got to my feet and ran to a different window in my kitchen just in time to see the young Cooper’s hawk flying to the west with a dove in its talons. There was no way that I was going to be able to capture the injured dove, but an injured bird on the ground stood no chance against a supremely agile and highly motivated predator.
If the dove had just remained calm it would have survived this particular incident, but it is likely that the hawk would have captured it eventually. In fact, it is quite possible that a similar “attack” by the same bird caused a huge panic among a large flock of doves and that the injured bird flew into a window as a result. This hawk may have returned to see if there were any stragglers that could be picked off in a mop-up operation. What I find so remarkable about this story is the possibility that the dove only managed to survive for 10-15 minutes after being injured. That is a thin margin for survival!
Neither one of today’s photos show the birds involved in today’s story, but are meant only to represent the predator and the injured prey. Doves and hawks are seen in my yard on a daily basis, but getting the actual attack on film is something that has proven elusive so far. Even as I type these words I just heard a slight clunk that indicates a small bird has bumped into a window, but this was just a glancing blow. Still, I think I’ll go see if anyone needs to be rescued before the hawk shows up for breakfast.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 24 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.