"On weekday mornings, when pedestrians would activate the signal during rush hour, roughly 10 cars would usually be backed up down a side street. This jam turned out to be the perfect cover for a...
"On weekday mornings, when pedestrians would activate the signal during rush hour, roughly 10 cars would usually be backed up down a side street. This jam turned out to be the perfect cover for a stealth attack: Once the cars had assembled, the bird would swoop down from its perch in a nearby tree, fly low to the ground along the line of vehicles, then veer abruptly into a residential yard, where a small flock of sparrows, doves, and starlings would often gather to eat crumbs—blissfully unaware of their impending doom."
Not as clever as the hawk in the article, but we used to have hawks who indirectly used our bird feeder. There is a tall tree in front and hawks would wait there until a mourning dove would show...
Not as clever as the hawk in the article, but we used to have hawks who indirectly used our bird feeder. There is a tall tree in front and hawks would wait there until a mourning dove would show up. The hawk would ignore sparrows and finches and wait for the doves, which are much larger and a little slower. Anyway after watching a few doves get ripped apart in my yard I took down the feeder, which we had named "the hawk feeder".
Another bird behavior I see a lot is crows attacking hawks. A group of 3-6 crows will chase a hawk out of the area, repeatedly dive bombing it. The hawk seems large enough to fight back but it doesn't. Apparently it doesn't want to risk getting injured by the crows. I assume that the crows are trying to keep the hawk away from their nests.
I've seen Blue Jays / Scrub Jays a lot since I was a kid. They seem very intelligent, and also belligerent. Our neighbor had a German Shepherd and the jays would attack it. I haven't seen them in...
I've seen Blue Jays / Scrub Jays a lot since I was a kid. They seem very intelligent, and also belligerent. Our neighbor had a German Shepherd and the jays would attack it. I haven't seen them in groups and I haven't seen them attack hawks though, I'll keep an eye out for that. I've seen both crows and jays take walnuts into the air and drop them on the street to crack them, which is clever and sort of like using tools.
I don't see jays in flocks very often, but an adult will dive bomb humans to keep them from a nest (we had one in a tree as a kid). But they'll call in neighborhood backup for hawks I've seen...
I don't see jays in flocks very often, but an adult will dive bomb humans to keep them from a nest (we had one in a tree as a kid).
But they'll call in neighborhood backup for hawks
I've seen blackbirds (not crows) mob them a lot in the country. You can catch a lot of red tails on the hunt while driving through cornfields, even on the interstate, and sometimes you'll see a mob of blackbirds driving a hawk off too
Hard to say. It's probably occasional enough that they benefit more from staying than avoiding entirely. I think flocking birds' survival skills tend more towards not being the slow one.
Hard to say. It's probably occasional enough that they benefit more from staying than avoiding entirely. I think flocking birds' survival skills tend more towards not being the slow one.
"On weekday mornings, when pedestrians would activate the signal during rush hour, roughly 10 cars would usually be backed up down a side street. This jam turned out to be the perfect cover for a stealth attack: Once the cars had assembled, the bird would swoop down from its perch in a nearby tree, fly low to the ground along the line of vehicles, then veer abruptly into a residential yard, where a small flock of sparrows, doves, and starlings would often gather to eat crumbs—blissfully unaware of their impending doom."
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Not as clever as the hawk in the article, but we used to have hawks who indirectly used our bird feeder. There is a tall tree in front and hawks would wait there until a mourning dove would show up. The hawk would ignore sparrows and finches and wait for the doves, which are much larger and a little slower. Anyway after watching a few doves get ripped apart in my yard I took down the feeder, which we had named "the hawk feeder".
Another bird behavior I see a lot is crows attacking hawks. A group of 3-6 crows will chase a hawk out of the area, repeatedly dive bombing it. The hawk seems large enough to fight back but it doesn't. Apparently it doesn't want to risk getting injured by the crows. I assume that the crows are trying to keep the hawk away from their nests.
Blue jays (which are also Corvids) will gang up to chase off hawks too. Nature's little game of Red vs. Blue.
I've seen Blue Jays / Scrub Jays a lot since I was a kid. They seem very intelligent, and also belligerent. Our neighbor had a German Shepherd and the jays would attack it. I haven't seen them in groups and I haven't seen them attack hawks though, I'll keep an eye out for that. I've seen both crows and jays take walnuts into the air and drop them on the street to crack them, which is clever and sort of like using tools.
I don't see jays in flocks very often, but an adult will dive bomb humans to keep them from a nest (we had one in a tree as a kid).
But they'll call in neighborhood backup for hawks
I've seen blackbirds (not crows) mob them a lot in the country. You can catch a lot of red tails on the hunt while driving through cornfields, even on the interstate, and sometimes you'll see a mob of blackbirds driving a hawk off too
I wonder how long it would take the 'porch birds' to learn that the cross-walk sound is a sign of impending doom.
Hard to say. It's probably occasional enough that they benefit more from staying than avoiding entirely. I think flocking birds' survival skills tend more towards not being the slow one.