Christmas Dinner.

[roscoe]

I was out in the garage this afternoon, just straightening up, checking the battery tenders, filling the washer fluid in the truck.

Came out of the garage just in time to see a sharp-shinned hawk dive from the tree toward my house.
It actually hit the window, recovered, and then attempted to hover and strike the window again.

All confused, it landed in a shrub about 20 feet from me.
About 15 seconds later it saw me and flew to a larger tree about 70 feet away.

So, what was this bird doing trying to enter my house?
Looking for Christmas dinner of course.

Just inside that window, is a cage, home of a citron-crested cockatoo.







Needless to say, he went away hungry, but managed to scare the carp out of my parrot.


I suspect this is the same hawk that has been eating mourning doves and juncos at my bird feeder.
It will probably be feeding here all winter, but don't understand why it didn't migrate further south.

 

[colbyt]

Re: Christmas Dinner.

Sorry but I can't help myself.

but managed to scare the carp out of my parrot.

That's quite a fish story. How big was the carp?

 

[roscoe]

Re: Christmas Dinner.

Pretty big.

The poor guy was screaming for 10 minutes.

Can't spell it the other way, or the moderators would need to edit.

 

[generator12]

Re: Christmas Dinner.

"I suspect this is the same hawk that has been eating mourning doves..."

Roscoe, send him over my way. The doves, "birds of peace", have spent half of 2013 emptying my large feeder - not by eating but by pushing sunflower seeds out of it all over the ground beneath.

The lady and I were once watching the activity outside the kitchen window, with dozens of finches crowding each other and scrambling all over my large two-partition feeder. Suddenly they all scattered, as though somebody had blown a whistle to start a race. One of them headed toward us, ramming the window before our eyes just as a Cooper's Hawk zoomed across our vista. The poor guy that hit the window and bounced off never had a chance. He was taken in mid-air. The hawk then flew over to a fence about 25 feet from the window and proceeded to dine on finch. Took him about five minutes to reduce it to scraps.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Christmas Dinner.

I had a Kestrel that would empty the sparrow nest a couple times a year when I lived in Milwaukee.

The nest was 3' outside my screen door, up under the awning.



I've also witnessed the peregrines snatch pigeons out of the air in downtown Milw.

Cool cool creatures.

 

[Fishing Dude too]

Re: Christmas Dinner.

Here we have many Red Hawks in the area love to watch them hunt