Hi All,
As we were eating breakfast this morning with a guest from Alaska, we
observed an adult male light morph Swainson's Hawk walking and eating
earthworms on the golf fairway behind our house. I'm not sure if the
bird was one of the pair that mated in the area this summer or a
recent migrant (hunch is resident bird from breeding pair this summer).
Great sight to watch: The Swainson's would stand on the fairway, look
around, then walk/run to a spot 5-15 yards away where it picked up an
earthworm from the ground(rained last night), then either gulp the
worm down whole or decapitate the worm and eat it in two bites. It
would then stand and look around, before going after another earthworm
in the same manner. Meanwhile for part of the show, a Black-billed
Magpie followed the Swainson's, staying directly behind it, then
reaching up from behind to try and pluck a feather from the tail,
upper coverts, or rump of the hawk. The Swainson's didn't seem too
perturbed and continued to chase down the earthworms writhing on top
of the grass followed by the playful magpie. An American Kestrel also
stooped at the Swainson's a couple of times, but wasn't able to chase
it off. A nice breakfast by all!
Mike Henwood
Morrison
Jefferson County
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado
Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
