Posted on 07/29/2018 9:18:49 PM PDT by EinNYC
This is NYC, not rural NJ. This is what makes this so weird. While my neighbor's 18 month old and 3 year old daughters were happily splashing around in a little pool in the yard, a red tailed hawk landed on the porch railing not 10' from the little girls. My neighbor shot several pics with her cell phone. She would have called me over, knowing I'm an avid birder, but I had just left in my car on an errand. Scared that the raptor might hurt her kids, she grabbed them and took them inside. I guess Mr. Hawk was interested in the flock of sparrows always hanging around or maybe one of the pesky squirrels who like to dig up my garden plants. Or maybe it was interested in the water in the pool. Who knows?
My great-grandaddy X50 was a T Rex!
Looks like a Great Blue Heron and a Snowny Egret.
Good idea. It worked for me as well although if that is super slo mo, I just have to wonder what kind of bird feeder that was. For sure an anti-squirrel.
I had one about 10 feet from me the other day, but, I was on the second floor, and the bird was on a powerline.
We have lots of these guys down here in my southern semi-urban city. Also, owls, bald eagles (mostly on the rivers) and buzzards.
There is plenty for them all to eat.
They all probably think that...with good reason!
I was walking through my parking lot at work one day, and I heard this terrible sound I had never heard before...it was some kind of animal sound, it was obvious, but I had no idea what it was.
There, in between two cars, was a red tail hawk, standing on top of a sleek shiny black form...a crow. It had its talons sunk deeply into the crow, who was quivering and emitting a horrible, horrible un-crow-like sound of pain.
When I walked over to get a closer look, the hawk drooped its wings down (apparently this is called ‘mantling’ to conceal its prey) but it was pretty clear, it had no intention whatsoever of leaving its prey.
I like crows too, but nature is hard, and I just had to leave it. I am glad we are usually (but not always) at the top of the food chain!
Those ARE good, and they work, but...not nearly as entertaining!!!!
Red Tails are known for their extraordinary hunting versatility and variety of prey.
They perform an interesting maneuver that generally isn’t seen in birds their size where they hover in place while trying to pick up the location of prey on the ground. Some other hawks do it, but they aren’t as big as red tails...usually the smaller raptors.
Hahahahahahaha! Cats can be stupidly fearless sometimes! (I admire cats!)
It is a “Yankee Flipper”...there is a motor in the base, when something heavier than a bunch of birds step on it, it begins to spin and then the fun begins!
Jays are indeed smart, but they have funny and sometimes goofy behavior. I disliked them for many years, because I never paid attention to them except the raucous call they make that is so irritating to our ears.
But once I did begin paying close attention to them, they actually make sounds that are quite nice, a very melodious, pleasant call. They have what is called a “Pump Handle” or “Squeaky Gate” call that is fun to hear, and they use it in territorial disputes with other Blue Jays. If you watch them, they bob their body up and down as they do it, and it gives them a rather goofy air!
When I feed them peanuts in the shell I make a clicking sound (six quick clicks as I snap my tongue from the roof of my mouth) and the Blue Jays, sometimes up to a dozen, know there are peanuts coming, and and they are all watching closely to see where I throw them. There are often up to six squirrels on he ground at the feeder at the same time, and the jays and squirrels compete for the peanuts. So the Jays and squirrels are all frozen, looking to see which direction I throw the peanut in (I do one at a time) and when I toss it, the race is on.
I try to toss them so the Jays can get there first, but they have to be bold. If they hesitate, they are at risk for being bitten by the squirrel, because the squirrels take this quite personally, and the Jays know it. But the bolder ones, even if it is close, will swoop in a split second before the squirrel can get there in a full run, peck the peanut up their beak, and fly off with their booty where they perch on a branch and smash the peanut repeatedly against a branch until the peanut shell opens up and they can get the good stuff inside! Usually, I have enough peanuts on each session to give every Jay a chance to get one, and they usually do. If another Jay or a squirrel gets the peanut first, they look up to see where I throw the next one...:)
I have begun to recognize them individually, which is kind of hard, but if you observe closely, it can be done.
I have one named “Bell Curve” because it isn’t that bright...I can easily recognize it because it seems to have dirty breast feathers. I throw a peanut down, and it cocks its head and looks at me, then looks at the peanut, then at me quizzically, but by that time, another Jay or squirrel swoops in and gets it, and then Bell Curve looks back at me for another peanut. Not too bright.
There is another one I call Black Crest because he has very prominent black markings that go from his face all the way around to the back of his crest and color the entire back black, which is prominent. Black Crest is very bold, and when I throw the peanut, he meets it while it is bouncing around on the ground like a football player trying to recover an onside kick!
Blue Jays really do have a dark side, though. I watched one murder a sparrow. Really. It wasn’t for food, and there was something quite deliberate and sadistic about it. I couldn’t stand the piteous sound the sparrow was making as the blue jay pecked away at it for about fifteen minutes (initially I had no idea what that horrible sound was) so I decided I had to end it because I couldn’t work.)
I walked outside, and as I walked around the corner towards the feeder, I could see the blue jay standing on the sparrow, deliberately pecking. It looked up and saw me, and as I walked closer, it took one more peck, then flew away.
The sparrow had its eyes pecked out, and oddly, there was sparrow blood all over its head. I guess those little birds didn’t even seem like they had blood in them. But it was quivering and making noises, so I just put it out of its misery with the heel of my shoe.
Seriously, there was a specific sense of malice on the part of that Blue Jay. It was almost as if it had a vendetta against that sparrow for something, and was making sport of killing it because it LIKED killing it with malice. Never thought I would anthropomorphize an animal like that, but I couldn’t explain it any other way.
When the jay saw me, it took one, last...defiant peck. There was a feeling of “How do you like those apples, you effing sparrow piece of crap?”
I used to think squirrels were like vegans, or herbivores, eating only nuts, fruits, and seeds, but I just learned they are actually omnivores, who even sometimes eat small birds. (See this National Geographic article for information about squirrels sometimes eating small birds. So, birds sometimes eat squirrels, and, squirrels sometimes eat birds.)
If I want to feed those rodents (squirrels), I'll get a squirrel feeder, but I want them to leave my store-bought bird feeders and birdseed alone! What the birds and the squirrels do on their own dime is their own business. :-)
1) The perch drops, closing a door over the bird seed
2) The perch really drops; anything trying to perch on it (like, say, a squirrel) gets unceremoniously dumped about 6 feet to the ground.
It's too big for a squirrel to perch on the top and reach down to get the food. I saw one try, once. It was funny.
Nope. The Great American Egret has a yellow bill and the Snowy Egret has a black bill and black legs, but conspicuous yellow feet.
Snowy Egret on the run:
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