Mystery Hawks

[pameladean]

Sometime last week, on a humid evening with a high bright overcast, I went out for a walk. It was very sticky, but at least not hideously hot, as it had been for an interminable time. I was bored with all my usual walks, so I decided to go check out the lovely rampaging wild garden at the corner of 35th and Pillsbury. Besides being beautiful in itself, it provides endless narrative interest as one sees which pieces of it are firmly under control for the moment and which have gone mad and overflowed their bounds.

It looked pretty tidy this time. The front yard, which is not very large, was full of shrub roses, semi-restrained brambles, purple coneflower, phlox, and coreopsis. The boulevard had a glorious section of native sunflowers, an ignominious mown one where something had gotten out of hand, and a tangled collection of hairy bellflower, daylily, motherwort, ragweed, lambsquarters, and oxalis. The back yard was harder to glimpse because the fence was higher, but I was admiring the six-foot thistle that was blooming right over the fence, when I became aware of a background noise of whistling and screaming. It sounded more like a children's party with exceptionally melodious noisemakers than anything else. I went on down the 3400 block of Pillsbury Avenue, which is fortunate in still having seven or eight very large and ancient elm trees in good health. Swooping and whistling amongst their upper branches were about a dozen birds, large birds. I finally saw one silhouetted against the bright gray sky, and immediately thought, "Hawk."

I walked around craning my neck, and found three large flat nests that didn't look like crows' or squirrels' nests. The whistling and screaming went on. I could see the birds moving around, but the bright sky and the dark street made seeing much of anything difficult. I finally descried a bird sitting on a branch over the middle of the street, preening its breast feathers. It seemed to have a dark-gray slaty back and some white on its underside, and it did have a raptor profile when it turned its head briefly.

I went home to get the binoculars, but by the time I had done so it was too dark to make going back worthwhile.

I leafed through Sibley, looking particulary at peregrines, since we have a fairly thriving introduced population downtown, but I had not seen enough to be able to make an identification.

The next day it rained. I went back anyway, with the binoculars. I could hear the screaming two blocks away. I fell in with a pleasant fellow from the neighborhood, who told me that the health of the elms had been paid for and fought for repeatedly by the Lyndale Neighborhood Association,, that the hawks were nesting in the back yards of several residents as well as in the boulevard trees, and that he wondered if they were rough-legged hawks. One kindly landed in a river birch, much closer to the ground than the huge elms, and we both looked at it through the binoculars. They kept steaming up because it was humid; rain dripped all around. The bird was wet and kept shaking itself. The tips of its tail feathers looked as if they had been dipped in white paint, and it had stripes or rows of spots on part of its upper breast. The underside of its tail was mostly white, but we kept thinking we saw a rufous undertone and then deciding that maybe we didn't.

I went home and looked at the bird books again, but was no wiser.

This evening I went back, with binoculars. It's a clear day and was sunny then. I spent some time looking at two birds perched side by side on a very high branch of one of the boulevard elms. They were grooming themselves. They had dark stripes on the undersides of their tails, stripy throats, very definite white spots on the tops of their wing feathers, exceedingly white undersides to their tails.

I went home and looked at the bird books. They did look a bit like rough-legged hawks. But rough-legged hawks are allegedly here only in the winter. And they didn't look all that much like them. They didn't look all that much like anything, except some kind of hawk.

I am a terrible bird-watcher, but I do enjoy myself.

P.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

My eyesight is so crappy even with binocs I cannot identify a bird to save my life, but I never tire of watching them in flight.

Especially beginning in October, and all through November and December, we'll go down to the beach to escape the punishing heat and look out over the ocean. There will be three levels of birds in the air: low down the gulls and others who live there, busy going about the day's doings. Middle, the smaller migratories, usually in flocks. Punctuated by flying Vs of geese.

And high up I don't know what, I assume the larger raptors or whatever it is that migrates, just soaring specks against the hazy blue sky.

[pameladean]

Yeah, the eyesight part is icky. I hadn't thought of that as being part of my difficulty, but my visual field is so much more cluttered up after last March's peripheral vitreal detachment that that's probably part of it.

I love your layers at the beach, though. There is quite a beauty in larger movements, as I always tell myself when I'm in the cheap seats at the theater and see that somebody actually gave a passing thought to the view from there.

P.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

how neat. i wonder what type of hawks they are...

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

OK, you can send them over to my neighborhood. We have so many rabbits they are compleatly with out fear of humans and are ruining the side gardens. I'd love tape a hawk in full hunt mode, so as Mr Elmer J Fudd says "Kill da Wabbit".

[platypus]

I've always found Peterson's to have more clarity than Sibley. His birds somehow show off the field marks more obviously while still looking more natural. I know I'll have to make the transition eventually, since Peterson's isn't exactly going to have any future updates, but I cling to my battered copy.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

And it's the process that's fun, except for those who keep life lists. After all, the hawk doesn't need us to identify it, unless you're placing it in the Dubious Hills.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

The white spots make me think Peregrine. Was there anything to rule that out?

[pameladean]

Nothing big -- I ruled out kestrels and red-tailed hawks and red-shouldered hawks because there wasn't the right color. They just didn't look right. On the other hand, most of those birds were almost certainly juveniles, and a lot of the juveniles look more like one another than like adults. I agree that peregrines are the most likely possibility, excep that they don't typically nest in trees.

P.

[plaidkatia.livejournal.com]

I work at the U of M's book bindery, and we had three Cooper's Hawks residing outside the building for awhile this summer. It's up on Como and 29th, so it's not exactly downtown, but I didn't think it was rural enough for Coopers. Though there are certainly enough pigeons for the disembowling.

Apparently they're released birds from the Raptor Center--maybe that explains your mystery hawk? It does sound like a peregrine at least with the dark back and the spots, though my hawk identification skills have gotten a bit rusty... goshawks are also dark on the back, but they're huge comparatively, and I can't remember their underside... now I'm going to be wondering all day.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

The first time I met a goshawk, it was skreeing and diving at my head, and oh my lord yes those are big birds.

I was somewhat appalled when I later saw one that was not skreeing and diving at my head and learned they only weigh about three pounds and they do not, in fact, have a nine-foot wingspan or a voice that shatters the very earth itself.

OTOH, it gave me an unbelievably good reference for any stories in which the heroes are dive-bombed by raptors, because holy cow, that really is scary. (It was my own fault. The signs said, "Beware of nesting goshawks in the area," and I went biking through there anyway. Hoollleeee crap. O.O)

[clindau.livejournal.com]

Back before the trees were shorter than the lightpoles on our srteet, my sweetie and I watched a kestrel have a pigeon for breakfast. It was sitting atop the pole, feasting away.

It was cool. I've seen a raptor or two hover over the Sculpture Garden, but they're always just far enough away to defy identification.

C

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I can't get over kestrels. I thought they were big birds. The first time I actually saw one, he was cold, so he was this little tiny PUFF of a bird, and...that's not a kestrel! Kestrels are big! And ... and ... big!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I donno, Pamela. I think you sound like a pretty excellent bird-watcher. I mean, the point to me seems to be to enjoy yourself, and you're *clearly* having a grand time watching them. You might not be so much in the bird-*identifying* market, but you seem to have to watching part down pat. :)

[pameladean]

This made me laugh. And of course it's also quite true, as is what sdorn said upstream. I'll have to refine my self-deprecations a bit!

P.

[pameladean]

Thanks to everybody who's commented -- I'll be doing more individual replies later, but I didn't want anybody to feel snubbed. I'm really enjoying this.

P.

my guess?

[(Anonymous)]

The semi-communal nesting and loquacious nature would suggest to me that they're Harris Hawks; the white tail tips and undersides pretty much confirm it.

You shouldn't have them in Minnesota, but if there's a raptor center releasing birds to the wild, it seems possible.

http://www.desertmuseum.org/visit/rff_harris.html

or, completely tangentially,

http://danny.oz.au/travel/scotland/duncansby-dunrobin.html

-- Graydon, who does after all owe you a few wild-thing identifications

Re: my guess?

[pameladean]

I am so pleased to have been made aware of Harris's Hawk. I love their lifestyle. However, I don't think they could survive here, and I don't quite see how a local raptor center would get hold of one at all; a Harris's Hawk would have to be very seriously blown off course to end up here.

My real reason for thinking that's not what these guys are is, however, that they have chestnut bits, and the hawks I saw definitely don't.

P.

Re: my guess?

[(Anonymous)]

All Harris hawks don't have chestnut bits -- the ones at the Metro Zoo don't, for instance. (Annoyingly diverse range of colouring, your raptorial birds have...)

The thing that made me immediately suspect them is that most raptors just won't nest communally.

So maybe it can be put down to climate change? :)

-- Graydon

Re: my guess?

[pameladean]

Oh, fine, it's not enough to have light and dark morphs of this and that and Eastern and Pacific and Mountain versions just like time zones, now we have zoo and non-zoo birds. Hmph. 8-)

I wonder if the communal nesting has to do with the especially good opportunities in that neighborhood. There really are not many huge trees like that left, and especially not in such numbers.

P.

Re: my guess?

[(Anonymous)]

I may have to wander into your neighborhood to see the birds myself.
Also, I'm not sure of the LJ "reply to this" ettiquette--I wanted to comment on the idea of the Raptor Center releasing outstate birds locally. You really should make a field trip there...it's fascinating.
The center shelters/reahabilitates raptors from all over--including harpy eagles from Venezuela. The ones they can make fit to return home are returned to their native habitat. I think there was a Harris hawk when we visited in July. But, it would be released where it belongs, not in town. http://www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu/
Jan

Re: my guess?

[(Anonymous)]

etiquette.
I don't spell check, I don't re-read until too late.

Re: my guess?

[pameladean]

Reply to this is annoying, if somebody else gets in a comment ahead of you in response to the same remark. Adding context works fine, and people can usually figure out what you meant anyway.

There is a raptor center in Arizona, but I guess ours has better facilities or better technique or something? That's fascinating. I am much relieved that they would not release a desert hawk here.

P.

Re: my guess?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, regional birds, at the very least.

Feather colour is sensitive to diet (if you don't feed flamingos the particular plankton they're used to, they're white, not pink, frex), so perhaps the zoo (and possibly the ones you've got) doesn't provide the necessary variety of lizards to produce that robust chestnut colour.

The lack of huge trees is certainly a hardship to large tree nesting birds, but I don't think it'll overcome the general raptorial disdain for communal nesting, else osprey would never have taken up nesting on telephone poles.

-- Graydon

Might be Cooper's Hawks...

[(Anonymous)]

Upstream, someone suggested Cooper's I don't know how communal they are, but I've seen them near Diamond Lake (South Minneapolis). They also have a white tail band. We also have sharp-shinned hawks, but they're pretty small (according to

Pamela, if you can get a feel for the silhouette in flight, that will help. Cooper'ses(how do you pluralize a possessive that's also a name?) and sharp-shins look like a cross between falcons and a hawks. Short, widish wings and long, slender tail.

Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter has pictures and stuff
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/infocenter.html

cooper's http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i3330id.html
sharp-shinned http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/Infocenter/i3320id.html

And because I must dump every bit of info I have: buteo hawks have "fat" silhouettes--broad wings and a fan-like tail. Falcon's have sharp wings almost like gulls and slender tails.

AND there's a light form of the red-tail called Kreider's hawk. We saw a courting pair at my mother's--very cool. The Raptor Center has one. You should go there on a field trip. The Center is open most days to drop-in visitors.

Jan M

Re: Might be Cooper's Hawks...

[pameladean]

I was awfully comforted by the poor quality of the photographs. That's about how much detail I could see.

Thanks for the info about the silhouette. These look very much like buteos rather than falcons.

Coopers' Hawk just doesn't look right somehow, though.

The last time I went back they weren't visible though I could hear them. I'll try again for a lucky clearer look.

P.