By now at least half the town knows that Lib fell off a ladder tending to the pigeons in the “trap” on top of the pigeon loft. I use “trap” in quotes, because normally it is a pigeon racer’s term for sort of double entrance chamber used in racing pigeon competitions to control access. But …
Tag: Accipiters
Scene of the Crime
Is that feathers I see? Maybe this guy?
Predator
Cooper’s hawks, quintessential Accipitrine stealth predators, transform themselves from hidden to active in an instant. Dan Gauss gets it here. But how did Audubon do something nearly identical about 175 or more years ago? I will try to find but this is better a search in books than in the electrosphere, books I assume that …
I.D.
Thesis: Sydney Vale, not a birder, called a female Sparrowhawk a ‘Goshawk’. See especially the larger female in Liam O’ Broin’s book, lower right.
Release!
This year’s raiding Cooper’s– actually a little male– flying straight at Libby and the camera as we relocate him to the Socorro bosque and even more pigeons. He still doesn’t look pleased.
Accipiters
Everywhere, doing their courting flights even in town. My reading indicates Coopers at least are becoming urbanized; the Eurasian gos nests in city parks in Russia. This is the first in my thirty some years here that they have ventured so close to humans this deep into their breeding cycle. The poor pic is of …
Predator
Our last winter predator is an adult male Coopers hawk in beautiful plumage, and despite my admiration for his kind I hope he moves on to nest– I don’t relish keeping my pigeons in for very long. He allowed me to get even closer, but this was the best I could do; the photo is …
The bitch is back…
The hag Coopers that is. I am a LITTLE tired of her. She doesn’t take too many pigeons, and the ones she takes are probably not my best (though if any of my occasional flying pouter discussion group are reading, several half pouters of the bulky Spanish kind have so far outflown her), but she …
Haggard
I want a Cooper’s hawk but this one is a breeding adult, too old and too valuable to the population to keep, not to mention illegal. She trapped into my flight loft today and I will release her to make more tomorrow. She weighs nearly a pound, huge for a western Coop, and is a …