Tweets, I saw an amazing display at noon today when I was biking to an afternoon Spanish class. I heard a Red-tail calling as I was crossing the bridge near UW Bothell, and when I looked up there were 2 hawks about 100 ft. in the air with talons locked. They were twirling, "tire-style," really fast, heading straight down. They hit the water after which the "top-dawg" was able to fly off, but the bottom raptor was stuck in the river. He made several attempts to fly, but was unsuccessful. Finally he made his way downriver, diagonally to the nearer river bank and pulled himself out of the water. After a couple more minutes, he was able to fly up to a scrawny tree on the bank. Lucky they were over water, as this was all a bit on the suicidal side! To top it all off, there was a third raptor, a Cooper's Hawk that initially appeared to be pursuing the Red-tails, then seemed to be "supervising" the duel. Needless to say, I was late to class....

Penny Koyama
Bothell, WA
plkoyama at verizon.net