Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes, however,
you get to see something new and exciting – for example, yesterday our family got
to see a fawn, I am guessing that of a white-tailed deer, because we live on
the East Coast rather than the West, where the black-tailed/mule deer is more
common. (In addition, the elk is bigger than both of them are). It was spotted,
adorable, and I am thinking that it is this youngster and its’ mother who are
nibbling on our tree seedlings. Fair enough, but today I want to talk to you
not about deer, but about hawks.
What are hawks?
They are birds of prey that are not
falcons or eagles. As a rule, eagles are larger and bulker than the hawks are,
while falcons are faster and more streamlined. Put otherwise, the falcons have
evolved to be speed demons, while hawks are masters of maneuverability instead;
the falcons dominate in the open sky, (like the peregrine), over prairies, (like
the Mexican falcon), and fields, (i.e. kestrel), while the hawks prefer to hunt
in more closed spaces, such as woodlands. Pause.
Now, an ambush predator is often colored cryptically, with
spots and stripes, as the big cats (and owls) are, and hawks are no exception –
their plumage is barred, especially on the lower half of their bodies. Pause.
In the English language, there are two groups of hawks –
those that belong to the genus Accipiter,
and those to the genus Buteo; the
former are the more formidable hunters, and in some other languages, such as
Russian, the latter aren’t always acknowledged to be ‘hawks’, but are
considered to be ‘buzzards’ instead.
How a ‘buzzard’ is different from a ‘hawk’ is another story,
but for now, let us talk about the birds from the Accipiter group. They have barred plumage on the lower halves of
their body, and the plumage on their upper halves is usually grey instead of
brown, as it is in case of some of the American buteos, for example. And-?
And these are primarily forest birds, ambush hunters – they attack
from cover, say tree foliage, or from behind a rooftop. Whereas falcons go high
first and charge at their prey from the top, the hawks can attack from down
below, charging quickly, but not for very long – usually.
Are ‘true’ hawks effective hunters? In my neighbourhood in
Toronto, there is a steady population of smaller hawks – sharp-shinned, I
guess. …Yes, I’m aware that quite a few scientists claim that the sharp-shinned
hawk should be reclassified into several separate hawk species, but I’m no
scientist, I really cannot say anything pro or contra to this statement, and so
all I got to say is that the sharp-shinned hawk isn’t much bigger than a
northern mockingbird is, (but it manages to overpower and kill them at least
once in a while), and it takes effort to avoid both the American crows and the
red-tailed hawks, both of which are bigger and more aggressive than the
sharp-shinned hawk is.
…The songbirds and the squirrels, on the other hand, also
tend to quiet down when a sharp-shinned hawk is in the neighborhood, but
nothing else; the grey squirrels, in particular, seem to be about the same size
as a sharp-shinned hawk is, and armed with sharp teeth, they are not too afraid
of it.
On the other hand, the talk of squirrels brings us to the
northern goshawk, one of the best squirrel hunters in the hawk world, and one
of the biggest of the ‘true’ hawks – it can be the same size as a great horned
owl, but looks much leaner and meaner than the latter. The two bird species manage
to co-exist by the goshawk being a diurnal hunter, and the owl a nocturnal one;
otherwise, the hawks and the owls do not always get along, and with the female
goshawk being a very large bird of prey…well…
One more thing: the northern goshawk is called northern not
just because it lives in the Northern Hemisphere, but also because the term ‘goshawk’
is used to name a lot of hawk species, over a dozen I would say. The same goes
for the term ‘sparrowhawk’ – many of the hawk birds are called that.
…Finally, the ‘duck hawk’ is not a hawk at all, but actually
a falcon – a peregrine falcon, the king of all falcons, and we will talk about
it some other time. For now, though, this is the end – see you all soon!
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