When I was a kid, my Dad had tumbling pigeons, slightly smaller versions of a Rock Dove that actually did backward somersaults in the air. Anyway, we would let them fly around the yard and they would always return to the coop. Well, a Sharp-shinned Hawk came through the yard one day and chased a pigeon, overtook it in mid air, grabbed it with its feed then glided down to the front of the house and landed in the middle of our road with the pigeon. I rushed to the front of the house and the Sharpie took off. The pigeon recovered with a few puncture marks, but the none the worse for wear, if not a little shaken up. If I hadn't been there, it most likely would have dispatched the pigeon with a bite to the neck and then consumed what it could. Seems like Sharpies like to consume their prey where they catch it, unlike other raptors that will carry their prey to a safer perch. Hence the reason why I find the remains of completely plucked birds on the lawn. Therefore, they will and can probably take larger birds that they are unable to carry.

Jeff Kozma
Yakima
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Paulson
To: Tweeters
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 5:02 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] large prey for Sharp-shinned Hawk


This forwarded from Dick Logan of Olympia, who's not on tweeters. A robin seems at the large end of prey for a Sharp-shinned Hawk, so I suspect it was a female sharpie.



Begin forwarded message:


From: Dbirdy61 at comcast.net
Date: November 18, 2006 9:24:14 PM PST
To: dennispaulson at comcast.net (Dennis Paulson)
Cc: Mark_logan_seattle at yahoo.com (Mark Logan)


Hi Dennis

We had an interesting incident this afternoon I thought you might be interested in. We were raking leaves in the back about three when a robin started singing in the Doug fir about 15 feet away between us and the house. Suddenly there was an explosion of feathers and a Sharp-shinned Hawk fell out of the tree on top of the robin. It stood on the body looking at us for a minute or so and then began to fly away from us and toward the house. The robin was so heavy that the poor hawk could neither gain enough elevation to get over the house or turn sharply to the left and consequently ran into the house. The hawk and robin once again fell to the ground. Then the hawk jumped up and flew off. I went over to see how the robin was doing but alas it was dead. Left the robin there and went into house but the sharpie never came back. So much for that lunch idea.

Cheers

Dick

Dick Logan


-----

Dennis Paulson

1724 NE 98 St.

Seattle, WA 98115

206-528-1382

dennispaulson at comcast.net





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