It was Veteran’s Day and I was sitting at my kitchen window. I had a delicious mug of freshly brewed coffee, a comfortable seat to sit in and freshly washed windows to look through. The feeders had been stocked and I was all ready for a session of bird observation. The morning was cloudy and, remarkably, the temperature was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. All I needed to do was wait and watch.

The regular morning crew was in attendance. Chickadees, cardinals, titmice and nuthatches were all present in their relatively small numbers. There were about 10 blue jays causing quite a ruckus on the deck and the flock of mourning doves was starting to fill out. Then, at 7:31 a.m. something spooked the doves and 18 birds suddenly took to the air at full blast. This is not particularly uncommon, but what followed next captured my attention fairly quickly.

It wasn’t just the doves that had taken flight, but every single other bird as well. For about 20 minutes there wasn’t any sign of a single feather. This is almost always the indication that a raptor is in the vicinity, but to go on for so long was what made it strange. Then, a blue jay appeared and the mystery was no longer a mystery.

Unbeknownst to me, there was a sharp-shinned hawk that had been sitting in the large eastern cottonwood tree that grows right next to my deck. The blue jay, having had enough of the hawk, decided to come in close and “give him the business.” A second blue jay arrived and, emboldened by their numbers, the jays became a little more aggressive. All of that bravery and bravado evaporated in an instant when the hawk decided that it had taken all the harassment that it could tolerate. And the game was on.

Every autumn, immature sharp-shinned hawks fan out across the landscape in search of surviving the winter. Hunting skills have to be honed, enemies must be contended with and, without fail, the blue jays must be dealt with. Almost identical in size, a young male sharp-shinned hawk and an adult blue jay have very little to fear from one another. That does not change the attitude of the jays, however. A sharp-shinned hawk could represent a threat to a fledgling jay, so the general attitude of all jays is one of aggression and intolerance of the hawks.

That being said, I can’t help but think that there might be a little component of entertainment on both sides of this “conflict.” Sometimes a jay will make a run at a hawk, while other times it is the hawk that makes the first move. It might be dangerous to describe this sort of interaction as a game, but there is a persistence about it that makes me wonder if they aren’t having a little bit of fun. I’ve seen migrating “Sharpies” stooping and diving at larger and slower red-tailed hawks for no particular reason. Are they having fun teasing a larger bird that is fairly helpless?

Jay chased hawk, then hawk chased jay, over and over again. At one point the melee changed venues and I was able to bring my camera to bear on the interaction. The birds were far away, but that allowed me to see them behaving “normally.” The hawk would perch in the even larger eastern cottonwood tree on the western edge of my yard and the jay would get closer and closer. Finally, the hawk would turn on the jay and then make a half-hearted dash in its direction. Predation didn’t seem to be the motivation. I could almost hear the hawk saying, “Quit it!”

At one point, after watching their interactions long enough to predict their moves, I managed to capture a photo that showed the entire story. Note how the jay and the hawk are almost identical in size.

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Evenly matched in speed and maneuverability, the birds have taken flight and they are paying very close attention to one another. The hawk has the advantage in weaponry, but each is capable of injuring the other and they never actually made physical contact with one another.

Only after this drama had moved away from my house did the little birds of the yard start to filter in again for breakfast. However, the numbers remained low and after another 45 minutes I surrendered and moved on to something else. The bonus involved in all of this was the fact that the sharp-shinned hawk was a very valuable addition to my November bird list. I am now only three species away from my all-time record of 35 species seen in my yard. That record list does not include a sharp-shinned hawk, so there is a chance that I might tie, or even break the record. I’ll keep you posted.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 27 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 go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.