hi tweets;

i found this posting on birdhawk quite interesting, thought others
may as well. this came up in discussion the other night and my
understanding is that many birds do kill each other in battle, but we
were discussing passerines. whata ya think about raptors???

marissa benavente
seattle
junebug at pol.net


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Originally From: Tom Salo <tomsalo at JUNO.COM>
Subject: [BIRDHAWK] Female Kestrals fight!
Date: 03/30/2000 09:08am


On 3/27 I witnessed an interesting event here in West
Burlington, NY. In
the evening, the Kestral pair that spends much of its time sitting in
the
tree above one of the Kestral boxes was out and about. A short time
later, I noticed the Kestrals acting stangely. Turns out two females
were
engaged in an intensive arial combat. For the first 15 minutes they
took
turns chasing and stooping at each other non-stop. Some of the
stooping
brought them within inches of the ground. During the early part of the
fight, an adult Goshawk flew through. This caused a very short
disuption.
The male - who was in the area - flew off, but after the Gos cleared
out,
the females immediately returned to battle. The chasing and stooping
continued. The male then returned with a mouse which he proceeded to
eat
in the nest box tree while the two women fought. After finishing his
meal, he flew out in the open and vocalized.
I watched this fight for an hour, from 5:10 to 6:10 when I
finally gave
in to rain, hunger, cold and encroaching darkness. The fight was still
going on when I left. The two females never stopped for more than 30
seconds. This was usually when the larger of the two would land close
to
the male. The smaller female would then charge in and resume the
attack.
I think the larger female was the resident bird and the smaller the
interloper. They were equally aggressive early in the fight but after
the
first 15 minutes the smaller bird was the primary aggressor.
It is incredible how much energy the two expended. This all
took place
in a very strong wind which must have increased the energy drain. The
larger bird landed next to the male 5 or 6 times but never rested for
very long. I was actually wondering if the energy expended could be
damaging to the birds.
At first I thought that one of the birds might kill the other
but only
once did I see contact. The smaller bird hit the other from behind
when
she was next to the male on a wire. They were very good at dodging
each
other's stooping attacks.
The next day everything seemed normal.
Does anyone know if Kestrals kill each other? Is this type of
extended
fighting among females common?
It's interesting that the Goshawk arriving shortly after the
fight
started. The habitat is agricultural mixed with varying sized
woodlots.
Its been 5 or 6 since I've seen a Goshawk here. I suspect it was no
accident that this bird flew right through the apex of the fight. It
came
from the direction of a nearby woodlot.

Tom Salo
West Burlington, NY 13482
tomsalo at juno.com