@throttleplate Other birds will also do it from time to time, usually in wide open areas. Watch for hawks flying slightly erratic vs their normal circling or straight line paths.

A Kestral is the lowest member in the Falcon family. Falconers usually start with one of them as their first bird.

I used to have to read papers in college about the difficulty of distinguishing a Cooper’s hawk and a sharp shinned hawk…….. don’t miss that! Hahah

 

we have a lot of northern harrier and red shouldered hawks but I believe they are larger buteos (like red tail hawks) that eat mostly mammals or big birds like pigeons. I’ve also seen them carrying snakes around. 

 

the accipitors are built like dog fighting airplanes for chasing birds thru the tree branches, like coopers and sharp shins. 
 

The smaller falcons like kestrels are definitely around, I’m just not quite as good at spotting/identifying them. Up in the cliffs of the mountains we supposedly have a decent population of peregrines, they love to hunt vertical walls. From what I understand they dive bomb birds in the skyscrapers of NYC 

When I was a young man I was fishing in sight of the house I now live in. An Osprey dove in and came up with a 5-6 pound bass. He was flying with all his might , but couldn’t get more than a few feet out of the water with it. He started trying to disengage his claws and finally did. 

When we saw what was happening, we rowed over asap in case the fish was too injured to swim off. Not to see if the fish would live, but making sure if he died or was about to  it would be another fish for the next fry…😬

I had a hawk come down talons forward thinking about taking my dog - my 'pup' being a 6 year old pitty/bullmastiff cross. Hawk pulled up about maybe 15 feet from her.

 

A rare nearsighted hawk perhaps...

 

Puppy didn't even notice

One morning I was at the kitchen sink waiting for the coffee to finish and I glanced out the window to see a Red Tail having a bunny breakfast in the back corner of my lot.

One day when my daughter was little she was looking out the back window watching the smaller birds at the bird feeder.  A hawk dove on the feeder and after catching one of the smaller birds, crashed into the deck and the back window.  My daughter was upset because she thought they were fighting.  We told her the bigger bird was the mama and it was taking the smaller baby bird back home to the nest.

Maybe it does happen everyday ? This was at work 

On 2/5/2024 at 2:53 AM, TnRiver46 said:

I used to have to read papers in college about the difficulty of distinguishing a Cooper’s hawk and a sharp shinned hawk…….. don’t miss that! Hahah

 

we have a lot of northern harrier and red shouldered hawks but I believe they are larger buteos (like red tail hawks) that eat mostly mammals or big birds like pigeons. I’ve also seen them carrying snakes around. 

 

the accipitors are built like dog fighting airplanes for chasing birds thru the tree branches, like coopers and sharp shins. 
 

The smaller falcons like kestrels are definitely around, I’m just not quite as good at spotting/identifying them. Up in the cliffs of the mountains we supposedly have a decent population of peregrines, they love to hunt vertical walls. From what I understand they dive bomb birds in the skyscrapers of NYC 

 

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