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Thread: ID Help--Unusual Behavior

  1. #1
    Dave Walz
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    Default ID Help--Unusual Behavior

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    I would appreciate some help IDing this hawk that I photographed yesterday morning. Is it a Coopers Hawk, Shin Hawk, or some other species? Also there was a group of large crows that seemed to be harassing this bird. Is that possible? The crows seem to be chasing him in flight. After he landed in the tree where I photographed him, several of the crows landed in my yard and seemed to have no real fear of the the hawk. I would appreciate any guidance anyone could offer.

  2. #2
    Paul Burgess
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    Yes, it's either a Sharp-Shinned Hawk or Coopers' Hawk.

    Size can help a lot in ID. How big was it? Was it about the same size as the crows? (Coopers', most likely.) Or more the size of a Blue Jay? (Sharp-Shinned, most likely.)

    Coopers' Hawks live year-round in most of Florida, while Sharp-shinned Hawks arrive for the winter. That would make me think this was a Coopers'.


    Right again! The crows would be harassing the hawk. To quote our moderator, John Chardine,:

    This is called "mobbing" behaviour and is often done by groups of crows, ravens and other bird species such as gulls, terns and jaegers at the breeding colony, Eastern Kingbirds (NA Tyrannid flycatcher) etc. It is known from experiments done many years ago that the shape of a hawk-type bird elicits mobbing behaviour, whether the hawk in question poses an actual threat or not. The evolutionary "rule of thumb" is mob anything that looks like a hawk. Mobbing evolved because overall it was beneficial to mob because often a real threat from a predatory bird would be averted. In this case the Red-tailed Hawk poses no/limited threat to the crow/raven so the interaction is one-way, from the corvid to the hawk. Mobbers are very good at staying out of the way of hawks and other species that are frequently mobbed such as herons. They general fly behind the mobbed bird and harass by diving at the bird and making lots of noise, even special mobbing calls. When this is done as a group, it is very effective at deterring potential predators. I suppose the hawk could turn around and clip the crow around the ear as they say, but in most cases it's just better to flee.
    From this thread: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=28182

    Happy shooting and God bless,

    Paul

  3. #3
    Dave Walz
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    Thank you so much for your quick reply. The bird in question was more the size of the crows that were chasing it. Your description of the "mobbing" was exactly as I saw it. The crows would "chase" the hawk and created so much noise that it was impossible to miss.

  4. #4
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    Anytime crows are causing a ruckus, I'll try to find the source of their mobbing behavior. More than once it's led me to a hawk and sometimes an owl which resulted in some good images. It's also fun to watch the crows being mobbed by smaller blackbirds.

  5. #5
    Dave Walz
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    Thank you for your info. I am relatively new to bird photography and find the time watching birds to be almost as rewarding as the photographs. It is nice to hear from an expert that what I saw is actually what was happening.

  6. #6
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    If it is as big as the crows then it was an adult Coopers.

  7. #7
    Mac Wheeler McDougal Jr.'s Avatar
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    Dave- I am not a great IDer of birds but this one looks like a Red-shouldered Hawk. My ID is based mostly on the dark streaks on the reddish breast and the fact that it was in Florida where there are many of them.
    Mac

  8. #8
    Paul Burgess
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    Both the Red-Shouldered Hawk and the Coopers' Hawk have the red-streaked breast, but the Red-shouldered would also have a lot of speckling on the wings.

    See here:
    http://sdakotabirds.com/species/phot...dered_hawk.jpg

    - Paul

  9. #9
    Shawn P. Carey
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    I believe this to be a Cooper's Hawk and is NOT a Red-shouldered.

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