This morning my wife and I were driving to Seattle on Interstate 90 just
west of Cle Elum at about 8am. I was driving and looking straight ahead when
I noticed an adult Red-tailed Hawk gliding from left to right across the
median strip. Almost immediately after noticing it, the hawk flew right
into the side of the 18-wheeler a hundred feet in front of us. At the very
last millisecond the bird flinched and tried to brake his speed to avoid the
truck but he was unable to. After smacking into the truck chest-first the
bird did a several backward tumbles and fell into the median strip a few
feet from the pavement. Traffic was moving fast and was too heavy for me to
stop.

I have witnessed many hunting hawks have near collisions with vehicles.
These birds apparently become visually fixated on their prey, and as they
are gliding in for the kill appear to be completely unaware of their
surroundings. Before high speed vehicles came on the scene, this fixation
was (and in most cases still is) an important trait.

This scene was quite upsetting, to say the least.

On another note, I spent several hours this morning and afternoon looking
for grackle species in the parking lot of the Auburn super mall. I only
found Brewer's Blackbirds.

Scott

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" Scott Ray "
" Moxee, WA "
" scray at wolfenet.com "
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