Robin Baird asked about Northern Harriers eating carrion.

I photographed a female harrier munching on a road-kill Eastern
Cottontail Rabbit near Keystone on Whidbey Island a few years ago.
Every time a car came by, it flew, but then it would come right back
to the rabbit. It would be interesting to come up with a list of
hawks that don't eat carrion.

And in response to the sighting of a harrier taking a Song Sparrow a
while back, I've always thought that harriers ate a lot of birds,
even though rodents may be their primary prey. I flushed a harrier
off a Black-bellied Plover carcass in Florida that seemed fresh
enough that I decided the harrier may well have killed it, and I've
seen them going after shorebirds on a number of occasions, but small
passerines of meadows are probably their most common avian prey.
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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