Subject: [Tweeters] Redtail eating Salmon
Date: Oct 28 14:36:44 2011
From: Rob Sandelin - nwnature1 at gmail.com


Today I spooked a redtail on Woods creek in Monroe where it had been poking
its beak at, and presumable scavenging dead Pink Salmon. I have never seen
this bird go after dead fish before. It flew upstream and I saw it again a
bit later, on the ground amid Salmon, although it flew as soon as I saw it
so I did not see it poke at a dead fish although there were several around
where it had been standing but I could not get to the fish to examine them.
If this is a non-typical behavior, I wonder if its passed on from adult to
offspring? Will it someday become common to see redtails scavenging dead
fish? Did they once do so, but with the decline of salmon, forget how? Or
do they do this regularly and somehow I have missed it all these years? The
questions never end. Also watched a dipper scarfing up salmon eggs at close
range.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County