Irene-- I've seen that behavior with all sorts of birds around a lot of
different raptors. While I don't purport to be expert at this I think
it's a function of trying to drive a potential predator out of their
area. For instance, I've seen birders imitate a pygmy owl to attract
songbirds as they will rush to the sound to drive the owl out of the
neighborhood as they instinctively know after dark it's going to be a
problem for them. It even works between raptors. I once saw a feisty
little male kestrel arc a redtail for 10 minutes non stop and every time
the hawk retracted his head a bit as the kestrel buzzed him. The big hawk
finally tired of it and flew away.

At a hawk ID class here in Olympia a couple of years back I heard a woman
tell a story that she was walking on the St. Martin's College campus when
she heard a bunch of crows making a big ruckus. She walked off the trail
to see what was going on and as she came up over a little berm, she saw a
Copper's Hawk on its back with a crow standing on it! She clapped her
hands and the crow flew off and the Coop righted itself and flew
away..must have been a juvie..

Hope this helps.





Tom Foote footet at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College 866-6000 x6118
Olympia, WA 98505






On Tue, 28 Feb 1995, Irene Wanner wrote:

> While waiting at a Montlake red light today, I saw a half dozen crows
> hassling a hawk that was riding the air currents. Why do the crows do
> this? Anyone know?
> Irene
>