Cooper’s Hawk

Spring is in the Air (and in the Ground)

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Fly April 10

When the pear tree’s pollinators finally arrived, they arrived in encouraging numbers. Hoverflies were the first wave, pretending to be bees.

Fly April 10

Fly April 10

A wave of true bees followed.

Bee April 10

Bee April 10

Happily, a few Question Mark butterflies drifted in near the end.

Question Mark April 10

Question Mark April 10

While the pear blooms lasted, the yard’s winter flock of yellow-rumped warblers divided their time between sipping nectar, foraging for insects, and sampling the last block of winter suet.

Warbler April 11

Warbler April 11

(As an aside, I spotted the following warbler yesterday and was confused by its complete lack of yellow feathers. I believe it is a yellow-rumped warbler, but I’ve never seen one that didn’t have at least a blush of yellow under its wings. Please comment if you can correct or confirm my identification!)

Warbler April 22

As the pear tree dropped its petals, we readied the yard for summer. We replaced damaged boards on the aging deck, uncovered the ginger lilies, and swept leaves out of the cactus bed. (The carpenter bees ignored us and concentrated on chasing each other. They also chased warblers, chickadees, crane flies, hoverflies, beetles, bees, leaves, dandelion fluff, and pear petals.)

Bee April 22

The garden stores aren’t fully stocked yet, but we found most of the plants on our list: dill, fennel, milkweed, columbine, annual lantana, snapdragons, salvia, and cosmos.

Flowers April 22

Yesterday, this American Painted Lady butterfly made me wish we had planted more cosmos. (The yard’s 2015 butterfly sightings, so far, are a major improvement over last year’s butterfly drought, but they don’t begin to equal 2012’s impressive migration.)

Butterfly April 22

The yard’s birds have been getting ready for summer, too. This little house wren doesn’t have a mate yet, but he clearly has a favorite house.

House Wren April 21

House Wren April 21

A pair of robins finished their nest last week and now spend most of their hours foraging.

Robin April 22

Robin April 22

(I am amazed by how many worms they find and eat each day.)

Robin April 22

The robins aren’t the only efficient foragers in our area. A pair of osprey make regular passes over the yard, carrying fish. Yesterday I caught a few frames as one of the pair nearly dropped its lunch on the deck.

Osprey April 22

After a brief struggle, which lasted no more than two wingbeats, the osprey managed to subdue its lunch and flew on. What would happen if the fish managed to break free? Would the osprey land on my deck and reclaim its catch? (I’d probably drop my camera and break it, leaving me with no proof of why I dropped it…)

Over the years I’ve found many surprising things in the yard, but never a fish. Perhaps this summer?

Osprey April 22

Except, it’s not summer yet. Today the windows are closed against a surge of chill that moved in overnight and is forecasted to last through the next few days. Mother would have called it dogwood winter, expecting the dogwoods to bloom after the chill passed. Or blackberry winter, if the blackberries were due to bloom. I’m content to call it the end of winter.

Hawk April 18

Grackles, Crows, and Hawks

Rae Spencer2 Comments

Crow and Grackle April 10

With so many birds building nests in the yard, conflicts are inevitable. The grackles have been particularly testy over the last few days, mobbing crows whenever the larger birds enter the yard’s airspace.

Crow and Grackle April 10

And the crows, who routinely retreat once the grackles have spotted them, will not tolerate the presence of a hawk. Sunday morning I managed to capture a few images as three crows chased a Cooper’s Hawk back and forth over the yard.

Hawk April 12

Hawk April 12

Hawk April 12

Hawk April 12

Hawk April 12

About ten minutes after the chase circled off to the north, I spotted another hawk in a tree two yards over. (Or maybe it was the same hawk, returning for another try at breakfast?) The grackles saw it, too, and began voicing their alarm. Soon a pair of blue jays arrived, also calling alarm. None of the commotion seemed to bother the hawk, until an approaching group of crows added their caws to the chorus. Then it gave up and moved off to try its luck in a quieter hunting spot.

Hawk April 12

Which led me to ponder the relationships between larger and smaller birds. Why would a larger, stronger bird flee from smaller birds? I suspect it has something to do with energy conservation, it simply being easier to leave when you aren’t hungry enough to risk losing a few feathers, but I wonder what they are all thinking as they call and chase and flee.  And how will their reasoning change, when hungry nestlings enter the equation?

A Busy Evening in the Yard

Rae Spencer14 Comments

Yesterday evening started out calm and quiet, with little visible activity in the yard. Then my husband phoned from the driveway. He didn’t want to get out of his car because there was a hawk in the front yard, one that was having trouble subduing a rat. He didn’t want to frighten it away.

This area has a growing roof rat population. Our shed is constantly under siege. We clear nests as we find them, keep our birdseed in a sealed container in the garage, and never fill the feeders with more seed than the birds can eat in a day. Rats still invade the shed. Recently, one has left an unmistakable trail of new evidence. We’ve been considering a more aggressive policy for our rat, one that will involve traps, but it seems such drastic measures won’t be necessary.

I believe this is a young Cooper’s Hawk. It eventually killed the rat, then carried its prize into the back yard.

We weren’t thrilled with the hawk’s decision to dine on our deck railing. Even so, we hope it will come back, the next time it craves a rat. (Just to be clear… that’s RAT. Not RABBIT.)

After the hawk left, a rabbit emerged from her hiding place under the deck and began digging a new nest. (The above photo was taken on August 16th. I believe it is the same rabbit.) I was skeptical of her efforts. I let myself get too excited, during construction of the last nest, which doubled my disappointment when the rabbit abandoned the site before finishing the nest.

Maybe this time? I didn’t want to watch too closely, so I turned my attention to the ginger lilies.

Each fall, I become obsessed with sphinx moths. This year the moths are a few weeks early, but as long as the ginger lilies keep blooming, the moths will keep coming. We typically see Pink-spotted hawkmoths, though the last few nights have brought mostly Carolina sphinx moths. My earlier photos were underexposed (except the one that was badly overexposed…), so I was happy to have another chance to practice with my camera’s flash.

After it grew too dark to see moths, I checked the rabbit’s progress. She had completed the nest and was nowhere in sight. I feared it would be another false-start. Another abandoned nest. But a closer look showed several tufts of hair around the nest, which seemed a good sign. (In the final stage before birth, rabbits pluck their own fur for the nest’s innermost lining.) I was tempted to look inside the nest, but forced myself to leave everything untouched.

Can you see the nest? The disturbed area in the foreground is where she harvested grass to line the nest. The smaller spot is the actual nest.

This morning, I couldn’t resist the temptation to check for babies. Success! Inside the nest, the babies are snug in a water-tight pocket of hair, which is surrounded by a thick pocket of dry grass, which is all cleverly buried and nearly invisible.

Now comes the hard part. As much as I want “our” rabbits to thrive, I know the odds are against them. The world is a dangerous place for baby rabbits. It teems with stray cats and hawks.

For that matter, the world is a dangerous place for all of us. Take away cats and hawks, and the world would be no safer. It would only be less beautiful.