Hi Rachel and Tweeters,

I put a post on Tweeters a few months ago about a friend of mine who
reported a brown hawk hunting small birds in her backyard. She lives less
than a mile from Lone Lake on south Whidbey - pretty good harrier habitat.
The bird was weaving in and out of the trees like a fighter jet. It had a
blue patagial wing tag. I pulled out Sibley and showed her the likely
suspects and she chose Cooper's hawk out of the lineup (but took a hard look
at the harrier). OK so far. Problem is, I later heard from Jack Bettesworth
and Bob Merrick who tag a lot of harriers. They don't know of anyone tagging
Cooper's hawks. So...looks like harriers do hunt small birds like
accipiters.

Dave Parent, Freeland, WA

-----Original Message-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
[mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Rachel
Lawson
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 6:46 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Harriers hunting birds in a backyard

I usually answer the e-mail at the Seattle Audubon office, and this week
there was an interesting message from some people who live in the
Seattle Hills neighborhood in Snohomish County. They said they have a
pair of Northern Harriers that hunts birds at the feeders in their
backyard, and wanted to know how they could discourage this behavior. I
asked them if they are sure the hawks are harriers, since Cooper's Hawks
seemed more likely, but they described the facial disk of the harriers
(initially, they thought the first one they saw was an owl), and said
that one of the hawks is gray.

I have never heard of harriers hunting birds in a suburban backyard.
Has anyone else observed this?

Rachel Lawson
Seattle
RachelLawson at softhome.net




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