>In a sharpie's eyes is it any more conspicuous than, say, a
>junco? (Has anyone done experiments on perception/predation of bird prey in
>raptors?

>From long experience banding raptors, I can say that accipiters seem
to be very attracted to black-and-white pigeons, more so than to
"normal" birds. In the morning, though, all-black pigeons work
very well.

I think it is simply a matter of visibility. In the AM, migrant
accipiters fly lower and close to the ridge on which the site I work
is located. They're often looking at the lure bird with sky as the
background, and I think dark pigeons just show up better (we don't
normally use "normal" colored pigeons as they generally are big and
like to glide rather than flap). Also, the sun is low to the SE
early in the day, and the hawk is often looking at a backlit lure.

Later in the day, when the accipiters tend to be further off the
ridge and above the banding stations, I think the pied-patterned
lures are simply more visible.

Accipiters are attracted to motion, and I think such motion is more
obvious to them in a patterned bird. They certainly APPEAR to see
such a bird from much futher out than a plain pigeon. But most will
ignore a motionless, non-flapping lure no matter what color or pattern.

-Don Baccus-