@kittykat9180 I once had a red tail fly into my garage before we put an auto close on the door. I walked in to finish a woodworking project and it was using my chop saw as a perch. I wound up phoning a friend who used to work at a raptor rehabilitation in Eugene and we were able to finally get it safely out of my garage. They’re gorgeous but I wasn’t about to try and make friends with it. Their beaks and talons are no joke.
@kittykat9180@sillyheathen Hey, my daughter used to work at the Eugene raptor center. My wife and I accompanied her a couple of times when she released rehabilitated birds.
Now she is the head wrangler at a bird sanctuary/rehab in Bend, OR.
@kittykat9180@macromeh no way!!! The SunRiver Raptor place?!? We go there everytime we’re in that area. I wonder if she knows my friend. I think it’s been about ten years or so since she worked there. I’ll have to ask.
Such a beautiful bird!
We had a frequent flyer who came to our yard daily, he was much smaller but still had no problem helping himself to our free range to chickens.
@Lynnerizer he was quite captivating! He flew in while i was waking by. I stopped, pulled my phone out of my pocket and took his picture. When I started to walk again he startled so i stopped and spoke calmly to him and he settled back down. I really think he never saw me until I took his picture. He had come down from behind the tree.
@ybmuG
It’s amazing how wild animals interact and communicate with us. I think they have such perception, I bet he saw you the entire time and just pretended not to!
That’s a gorgeous creature! I once saw a hawk about that close up when it swooped into a flowering crabapple tree branch right in front of me. It had its dinner in its claws! A young magpie, I think. I posted a pic here a while back.
I didn’t get a pic but I experienced my own nature documentary with an owl just a few feet from my face one night some years back. I was flying a little free flight plane in lazy circles right at head height in an open field and standing in the middle of its circle. As the plane came from behind me around my right shoulder I suddenly heard something and looked up to see a large owl coming at the little yellow plane, talons first and pumping backward with its wings. Before it started that maneuver it made absolutely no sound.
Time went into slow motion and vision went into 4K HD as I could see all the feathers around its legs ruffling in the backwards airflow and watch how it pumped its wings to slow down and snatch its prey. Either I spooked it or it made a judgement call that it wasn’t in the mood for Piper Cub that evening, because at the last second it changed its mind and flew off.
The plane continued its lazy circles, unaware that it had almost been the least satisfying meal that owl ever ate.
You want to see raptors, come to Colorado. There are so many hawks, falcons, owls and eagles here it’s ridiculous. I can’t free range my chickens because they’d all get picked off by those bastards.
@Pony when yekoP was a puppy, we never left him outside by himself because there were always hawks circling overheard. We were right next to a park so good hunting ground but we didn’t want to give them an easy snack.
@Kyeh@ybmuG I fret about our old man cat- he’s 12+ and he’s gotten skinnier as he’s aged, so I worry a larger bird could take him. But he refuses to stay inside unless it’s wet or freezing. Our farm cat is a strappin’ lad, so I don’t worry about him being out there.
@Pony@ybmuG Yeah, I guess it becomes a quality of life question; maybe being hawk food eventually is better than wasting away inside pining to be outside, I don’t know!
(I’m currently dealing with my beloved Toby being sick but haven’t been up to saying much about it here at the moment. )
Yeah, terror and pain would be awful; I was thinking more of a quick deadly strike, but of course there’s no guarantee. I hope little old guy’s life ends peacefully!
@Kyeh@Pony@werehatrack I once saw a kestrel hit a robin in mid air. Both went to the ground - when I moved to get a closer view, the kestrel (not much bigger than the robin) took off. The robin was DOA.
Interesting live-action view of nature.
@Pony Cooper’s hawks are one reason I stopped keeping silkies. I loved them as broodies and flock mommas for baby chicks but they were SO dumb. The coopers would land near the enclosed run. The silkies would get curious and eventually stick their heads through the chicken wire and the cooper would literally bite their heads off. I finally spent some extra money and replaced the chicken wire with hardware cloth but man that was frustrating. It was always the silkies.
@Kyeh@Pony the babies were traumatized. all the other chickens knew better. Maybe it’s because the silkies can’t see well with all that floof in their faces.
@sillyheathen All three of our runs are done with hardware cloth. Too easy for the goddamn rattlesnakes to get in through chicken wire, although my husband still found one in the silkie run a few months ago. Who the hell knows how it got in. At least it didn’t bite anybody.
We regularly get Harris hawks and the occasional red-tailed in my backyard. I frequently used to find the debris of one of their pigeon snacks. The nearby freeway overpass has been nearly pigeon-free lately. (But it got cliff swallows! Yay!)
@werehatrack@ybmuG It’s a drinking game where you lie on your back with your head hanging over the edge of a cliff and… uh, I don’t know the exact rules.
@Pony@ybmuG Nah. They’re similar to barn swallows, but their natural habitat is sheer rock faces that keep many predators away. Their forked tails are shorter and more squared-off, and they love to nest on the underside of bridges. They are excellent at catching flying insects.
When I lived in Northern Idaho, many Bald Eagles stop at a lake up there in November (in Coeur d’Alene) and the kids from school take a field trip on a boat to see them. We saw probably 80+ juveniles and adult eagles perched, flying, on the ground…The most impressive one that we saw was flying low across the water, did a swoop, and came up with a fish in his talons.
@brainmist A dead possum turned up in my driveway one morning, so I called the city’s dead animal disposal people and followed their instructions about where to place the carcass. It took several days (ew!) and before the truck showed up, three vultures pretty much disposed of most of it, dragging the meager remains up into the yard.
When the city guy finally arrived, I joked that their contractors had already done a pretty good job of reducing what needed to be hauled off.
I saw a hawk up on a telephone pole a couple days ago. Seeing one this close would be awesome.
WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!
@kittykat9180 I once had a red tail fly into my garage before we put an auto close on the door. I walked in to finish a woodworking project and it was using my chop saw as a perch. I wound up phoning a friend who used to work at a raptor rehabilitation in Eugene and we were able to finally get it safely out of my garage. They’re gorgeous but I wasn’t about to try and make friends with it. Their beaks and talons are no joke.
@kittykat9180 @sillyheathen I read “it was using my chop saw” and thought WOW, you have some really advanced raptors in your area!
@kittykat9180 @ybmuG oh hell no. I would’ve put her to work if she’d been using the saw!
@kittykat9180 @sillyheathen Hey, my daughter used to work at the Eugene raptor center. My wife and I accompanied her a couple of times when she released rehabilitated birds.
Now she is the head wrangler at a bird sanctuary/rehab in Bend, OR.
@macromeh @sillyheathen that’s such a cool job!!
@kittykat9180 @macromeh no way!!! The SunRiver Raptor place?!? We go there everytime we’re in that area. I wonder if she knows my friend. I think it’s been about ten years or so since she worked there. I’ll have to ask.
Such a beautiful bird!
We had a frequent flyer who came to our yard daily, he was much smaller but still had no problem helping himself to our free range to chickens.
@Lynnerizer he was quite captivating! He flew in while i was waking by. I stopped, pulled my phone out of my pocket and took his picture. When I started to walk again he startled so i stopped and spoke calmly to him and he settled back down. I really think he never saw me until I took his picture. He had come down from behind the tree.
@ybmuG
It’s amazing how wild animals interact and communicate with us. I think they have such perception, I bet he saw you the entire time and just pretended not to!
Mr Hawk - Nah, I totally see you homie!
That’s a gorgeous creature! I once saw a hawk about that close up when it swooped into a flowering crabapple tree branch right in front of me. It had its dinner in its claws! A young magpie, I think. I posted a pic here a while back.
I didn’t get a pic but I experienced my own nature documentary with an owl just a few feet from my face one night some years back. I was flying a little free flight plane in lazy circles right at head height in an open field and standing in the middle of its circle. As the plane came from behind me around my right shoulder I suddenly heard something and looked up to see a large owl coming at the little yellow plane, talons first and pumping backward with its wings. Before it started that maneuver it made absolutely no sound.
Time went into slow motion and vision went into 4K HD as I could see all the feathers around its legs ruffling in the backwards airflow and watch how it pumped its wings to slow down and snatch its prey. Either I spooked it or it made a judgement call that it wasn’t in the mood for Piper Cub that evening, because at the last second it changed its mind and flew off.
The plane continued its lazy circles, unaware that it had almost been the least satisfying meal that owl ever ate.
@djslack Exciting! Too bad the plane didn’t have a camera in it.
You want to see raptors, come to Colorado. There are so many hawks, falcons, owls and eagles here it’s ridiculous. I can’t free range my chickens because they’d all get picked off by those bastards.
@Pony when yekoP was a puppy, we never left him outside by himself because there were always hawks circling overheard. We were right next to a park so good hunting ground but we didn’t want to give them an easy snack.
@Pony @ybmuG I knew some people who lived in the CO foothills who lost a cat to an owl.
@Kyeh @ybmuG I fret about our old man cat- he’s 12+ and he’s gotten skinnier as he’s aged, so I worry a larger bird could take him. But he refuses to stay inside unless it’s wet or freezing. Our farm cat is a strappin’ lad, so I don’t worry about him being out there.
@Pony @ybmuG Yeah, I guess it becomes a quality of life question; maybe being hawk food eventually is better than wasting away inside pining to be outside, I don’t know!
(I’m currently dealing with my beloved Toby being sick but haven’t been up to saying much about it here at the moment.
)
{{{@Kyeh}}}
@Kyeh @ybmuG Ack. No, I’d have to disagree on that one. Boredom is better than terror and pain.
So sorry to hear about Toby. My herd of cats and I wish him well.
@Pony @therealjrn Thank you.
Yeah, terror and pain would be awful; I was thinking more of a quick deadly strike, but of course there’s no guarantee. I hope little old guy’s life ends peacefully!
@Kyeh @Pony What I have seen of hawk dining habits did not include a quick clean kill. Not once. Ever.
@Pony @werehatrack Not sure I wanted to know that.
@Kyeh @Pony @werehatrack I once saw a kestrel hit a robin in mid air. Both went to the ground - when I moved to get a closer view, the kestrel (not much bigger than the robin) took off. The robin was DOA.
Interesting live-action view of nature.
@macromeh @Pony @werehatrack
I hope it came back for its dinner after you left.
@Pony Cooper’s hawks are one reason I stopped keeping silkies. I loved them as broodies and flock mommas for baby chicks but they were SO dumb. The coopers would land near the enclosed run. The silkies would get curious and eventually stick their heads through the chicken wire and the cooper would literally bite their heads off. I finally spent some extra money and replaced the chicken wire with hardware cloth but man that was frustrating. It was always the silkies.
@Pony @sillyheathen
Oh, how awful.
@Kyeh @Pony the babies were traumatized.
all the other chickens knew better. Maybe it’s because the silkies can’t see well with all that floof in their faces.
@Pony @sillyheathen That could be!
@sillyheathen All three of our runs are done with hardware cloth. Too easy for the goddamn rattlesnakes to get in through chicken wire, although my husband still found one in the silkie run a few months ago. Who the hell knows how it got in. At least it didn’t bite anybody.
We regularly get Harris hawks and the occasional red-tailed in my backyard. I frequently used to find the debris of one of their pigeon snacks. The nearby freeway overpass has been nearly pigeon-free lately. (But it got cliff swallows! Yay!)
@werehatrack what are cliff swallows?
@werehatrack @ybmuG
Uh…I got nuthin.
@werehatrack @ybmuG It’s a drinking game where you lie on your back with your head hanging over the edge of a cliff and… uh, I don’t know the exact rules.
@Pony @ybmuG Nah. They’re similar to barn swallows, but their natural habitat is sheer rock faces that keep many predators away. Their forked tails are shorter and more squared-off, and they love to nest on the underside of bridges. They are excellent at catching flying insects.
@Pony @werehatrack Just looked them up on Merlin. Now I want to add them to my list!
When I lived in Northern Idaho, many Bald Eagles stop at a lake up there in November (in Coeur d’Alene) and the kids from school take a field trip on a boat to see them. We saw probably 80+ juveniles and adult eagles perched, flying, on the ground…The most impressive one that we saw was flying low across the water, did a swoop, and came up with a fish in his talons.
@Kidsandliz In Oregon, they just perch over a trash bin.
That’s a handsome new friend!
I live close to a river, so I see a lot of hawks and eagles. But I can brag that this friend came here just because of me:
(well, really because of a dead raccoon)
@brainmist A dead possum turned up in my driveway one morning, so I called the city’s dead animal disposal people and followed their instructions about where to place the carcass. It took several days (ew!) and before the truck showed up, three vultures pretty much disposed of most of it, dragging the meager remains up into the yard.
When the city guy finally arrived, I joked that their contractors had already done a pretty good job of reducing what needed to be hauled off.