Hey Tweets,
Not to be anal but......
That Goshawk actually missed a Steller
breakfast. The spelling of Steller's Jay is almost always written as
:"Stellar" making it seem to have backgrounds with the stars. The Steller's
Jay was actually named after a German naturalist/physician George Steller
who explored Siberia and Alaska with Vitus Bering. Strangely Steller's Jays
seem to be the only species named after Steller to be doing well. Neither
Steller's Sea Eagle or Steller's Eider or Steller's Sea Lion are doing
particularly well. Neither was the now extinct Steller's Sea Cow.
Hopefully our beloved Steller's Jay won't ever find such an existence. Just
a little history!
-Brendan

Brendan McGarry
Seattle, Washington
Pica_pica417 at hotmail.com
UglyDuckling at hotmail.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous at msn.com>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 11:37 AM
Subject: A Goshawk just misses a stellar breakfast


> Just returned from a several week trip to the Sierras. One morning while
in
> the Desolation Wilderness above Lake Tahoe I got up early and climbed the
> granite to a perch a little bit above our camp. We were camped a little
> brushy draw with a small creek and a single large Jeffery Pine was the
only
> tree. That morning a Stellars Jay was hopping about, doing that circular
> climbing thing, where they hop from branch to branch around a tree,
starting
> low then going up. My attention was distracted by movement downstream and
a
> large dark flying shadow was cruising fast, just above the tops of the
> brush. After a few seconds I recognized it as a Goshawk, and it was in
full
> attack mode, targeting the jay. The Hawk stayed low at brush level (maybe
> 3-4 feet off the ground) then just as it approached the tree the Jay
became
> aware of the threat and screamed and flew first up, the hawk now making a
> steep, almost 90 degree upwards turn. The Jay sort of flipped over a
branch
> just as the hawk would have struck. It beat wings full tilt into the brush
> below, crashed headfirst into the brush then crawled into the deepest
cover
> it could find. The Hawk never came back after the first attempt, and by
the
> time I saw it again, it was halfway down the hill dropping elevation again
> to cruise at brush height. The whole drama lasted maybe 6 seconds.
>
>
> Rob Sandelin
> South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
> Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
> Field skills training for student naturalists
> Floriferous at msn.com
>
>
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