Northern Harriers eat primarily small mammals and will fly long distances to hunt at a good mammal site with good lift (15 to 20 miles on the Hanford Site). It was also typical for them to take western meadowlark on the wing. They are very capable of hunting songbirds. The ducks they ate were wouded by hunters on the Wahluke, the rabbits they ate were roadkill. (Dennis is correct about what hawk doesn't eat carrion...). Great photo story, Ruth. I once noosed up a dead mallard and caught a female harrier.





Patricia A. Thompson
Wildlife Biologist
Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
16018 Mill Creek Blvd.
Mill Creek, WA 98012
425-379-2302
thomppat at dfw.wa.gov

>>> "Ruth Taylor" <rutht at seanet.com> 01/20/07 6:12 PM >>>

Jeff:

Was this at Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in northern California?
Years ago, I went on a photo tour there, led by the former manager of the refuge. Inside the main entrance to the refuge, there was a photograph of a harrier eating a wigeon on the frozen lake. It was the former manager's photograph, and he told us how he got the shot. He spotted the dead duck on the ice while driving to work early in the morning. It was near an observation blind, so he attached fishing line to it, anticipating the arrival of a predator that he could photograph from the blind. By the time he was in the blind, a harrier had landed on the duck. He waited until it started feeding and began very slowly pulling the duck with harrier atop toward the blind. He eventually got this combination close enough for some good shots. He got his photos, and the hungry harrier got a meal - a good outcome for both!

Ruth Taylor
Seattle/Ballard
rutht at seanet.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Kozma <jkozma at charter.net>
To: Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, January 19, 2007 6:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] northern harrier eating a starling, Olympia


I have also seen a photo of a Northern Harrier feeding on a dead Wigeon on a frozen lake. I am assuming that the Harrier didn't kill the wigeon itself.

Jeff Kozma
Yakima

j kozma at charter dot net.


----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Paulson
To: Tweeters
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] northern harrier eating a starling, Olympia


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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