Had an interesting day watching a Northern Harrier eating a starling in my yard (off South Bay Road in Olympia). Spotted the harrier on the ground with the starling around 11 AM, about 15' outside my kitchen window. It spent over an hour and a half plucking the starling and slowly eating it, before walking a couple feet over to a pond we put in in the fall (to attract wildlife), and proceeded to wash and scrape the starling feathers off its bill. Then it sat for about two hours watching various songbirds fly about the yard. It seemed most interested in towhees and Golden-Crowned sparrows, ignoring Rock Doves and juncos, and when one towhee flew past a couple feet away it lunged towards it, seemingly having forgotten that there was a snowberry and Nootka rose plant in between it and the towhee. After disentangling itself from the Nooka rose, it went back to the remains of the starling and cleaned off the rest of the feathers. At that stage it started wandering down the hill, and found a dead starling that someone had shot (with a bb-gun a couple days earlier). I wasn't sure whether it had caught the first starling on its own, but this one was definitely an example of the harrier eating carrion. Do harriers normally eat carrion?

It didn't seem to be too hungry, as it just sat with the starling for an hour or so before finally starting to pluck and eat it. After the harrier had been in the yard for at least five and a half hours, the entire time on the ground in an area about 10' by 30', I saw it crouch down, then fly up. A fraction of a second later an adult Red-tailed Hawk hit the ground at the spot where the harrier had been, then took off immediately after it and chased it down the valley to the north, coming very close to hitting it at least 4 times before it gave up. The harrier initially took off with its second starling, but dropped it quickly. Quite a day. Photos of the harrier on the ground and at the pond are at our Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/89985360 at N00/

Interesting also to watch and listen to the reactions of the rest of the birds in the yard. Most of the small birds (juncos, song sparrows, golden-crowned sparrows, towhees) more-or-less ignored the harrier after the first half hour. Several flickers and Downy Woodpeckers would fly into a nearby tree at regular intervals, give alarm calls for a minute or two, then leave the area. The Steller's jays were noticeably absent during the entire period, though they were visible in the valley within a few hundred meters.

Robin

rwbaird (at) cascadiaresearch.org
Olympia, WA