The Sharp-Shinned Hawk And The Bluebird

[Steve Kroenke]

The Sharp-shinned Hawk And The Bluebird

Few songbirds match the beauty of the male bluebird with his bright sapphire feathered coat and rusty red breast. Bluebirds like to perch on open utility lines and look for insects crawling on the ground below. But perching in exposed places allows something else to see the bluebirds and this something else is not admiring their beauty. This something else has a hunger for the sweet flesh of bluebird and nothing more.

One March morning, I was riding my mountain bike through a subdivision located several miles from my previous home in Tallahassee, Florida. This development is located in a large open cow pasture with scattered trees and is the home to many bluebirds which nest in birdhouses erected along the side roads.

As I rode through the area, I noticed a pair of bluebirds sitting on a utility line high above their birdhouse. The male stood out like a bright blue Christmas light! Such a beautiful scene of serenity. But looks are deceiving and a life and death struggle was about to explode in graphic detail.

Suddenly the bluebirds emitted loud alarm calls and the male plunged downward from the utility line while the female streaked in the opposite direction toward me. Out of nowhere came a beautiful male sharp-shinned hawk with a bluish gray back and reddish barred breast and he was right on the male bluebird?s tail!

Both hunter and hunted twisted in a circuitous fast chase for perhaps 100 feet low over the ground and across an open front yard. The bluebird didn?t have a chance of out flying a sharpie by speed alone and tried to dodge the hawk with banking turns. He turned rapidly to the left and to the right close to the ground, made short climbs and dives in a desperate effort to shake his pursuer. But sharpies are masters of agility and can twist and turn like oversized flycatchers using their long tails as rudders and short rounded wings for quick maneuvers. Unable to elude the hawk, he attempted a final maneuver to out climb the sharpie in one last evasive action. The little bluebird didn?t get more than ten feet off the ground when the sharpie flared up and snagged his victim. I watched the twosome flutter to the ground and could hear the death screams of the male bluebird as the hawk?s talons did their grisly job. It was over in a few seconds and the hawk mantled over the bluebird in the open lawn.

The bluebird died quickly and the hawk then carried his prize toward a nearby pine grove where he could eat in solitude. The female bluebird emitted numerous alarm cries and actually followed the sharpie when he finally disappeared deep inside the woodlot.

On my way back home, I again rode through the same subdivision and checked out the pine grove. There I found the plucked feathers of the male bluebird on a bed of pine needles.

This was second time I had observed a sharp-shinned hawk catch a bluebird and both attacks were based on the element of surprise with both hunter and hunted in the open. Though Accipiter hawks like the Cooper?s and sharpie are thought of as ?forest raptors?, they often hunt in the open and will even dive from great heights to capture birds at lower altitudes. I have seen them do that when attacking my purple martin colonies.

Steve Kroenke

[Nanette]

Steve,
You write beautifully!

[Steve Kroenke]

Hey Nanette,

Thank you for that kind comment. I try to entertain, educate and inspire folks to think at a detail level with my writings.

Steve