Blake,

Of course I can't be sure that the rule always holds, and you might
well have seen a goshawk, but for what it's worth:

Several years ago I asked a raptor expert who ran the Derby Hill
Hawk Watch (near the southeastern "corner" of Lake Ontario) whether
there were any raptors that crows *wouldn't* harass. His wry reply
was that crows "assiduously avoid goshawks".

Can anyone out there positively contradict that statement?

Jim McCoy
jfmccoy at earthlink.net
Redmond, WA



-----Original Message-----
From: Blake Iverson [mailto:coopershwk at hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2002 2:53 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Possible Goshawk in Bothell?!


Hi Guys,

Well, while at work (in Bothell) I noticed two crows mobbing a raptor in a
tree far away. They did their normal stuff and then landed in the tree next
to the potential bird of prey and kept an eye on it. Then, one of them left
and the other started diving and on it's second dive, it started to pull out
of its dive and then it all of a sudden went back down and chased this
raptor out of site and which told me that it was an accipiter. Then, an hour
or so later, I saw a crow mobbing this other hawk in flight. The bird looked
very similar to a RT BUT, it's wing beats were not similar to a RT but
similar to an accipiter. But this bird was very big. It's wing beats were
powerful strokes it's flap-flap-glide wasn't as intense as a cooper's or a
sharpy but every time the crow went after the hawk the hawk flinched and
sort of moved out of the way with a hint of agility equal to that of an
accipiter. Juv. RT's by this time of year have learned that they don't need
to flinch or fly as fast as they can out of the area if being mobbed by a
crow, they just ignore them. But accipiters are accipiters and they will
always be cautious around crows no matter how fast, agile and strong they
may be (if a male, female coop or goshawk). I don't want to jump to
conclusions but this seemed like a gos to me.

Blake Iverson
Arlington, WA
coopershwk at hotmail.com


P.S. I think we just had an earthquake too.



_________________________________________________________________
Get a speedy connection with MSN Broadband.? Join now!
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/freeactivation.asp