bird fun

[Kathyp]

i have been mowing the fields and the  hawks are coming down to grab the voles as i stir them up.  pretty cool.  i think these are harriers.  they have run off my red tails, and they eat my barn kittens, but i guess that's life......

these suckers are big and fearless!

[JP]

Would love to see pictures of the event. When I mow at our property small rats run out but nothing pays any mind. Perhaps the snakes and coyotes will get lucky.


...JP

[Kathyp]

i didn't get any of it in the field.  can't drive and take pics.  the thing is to fast.  here is one i took last night when mowing down another field.  gives you an idea.  sorry it's blurry.  max zoom and wrong camera.
there are two of them out there waiting for me to come mow again  :-)

[JP]

Boy he looks ready Kathy!


...JP

[Kathyp]

http://picasaweb.google.com/pearce.km/Birds2?authkey=Gv1sRgCJvpwtDdi-jsEw#

ok.  i am done feeding the birds.  you sure ask a lot!  at least i didn't take out any fences getting you your pics  ;)

[Jerrymac]

I was on the lawn tractor mowing the yard today. I looked like a black comet.


No.  :-\ No mosquito problem here.  :roll:

[JP]

http://picasaweb.google.com/pearce.km/Birds2?authkey=Gv1sRgCJvpwtDdi-jsEw#

ok.  i am done feeding the birds.  you sure ask a lot!  at least i didn't take out any fences getting you your pics  ;)

Well, I just thought it would be cool to see! I didn't say "Kathy, you must go take pictures of the event!" :-D

But thank you for doing so, and very cool pics btw. ;)

My buddy Bailey called a little while ago and said he and his wife were watching some type of butterfly chasing bees in one of his bee yards. It did it several times. Of course I said, "see if you can get some pictures", so don't feel so bad, I put him to work also! :-*


...JP

[bailey]

never could get a shot of the event though, sorry
bailey

[JP]

Well, not everythings going to pose for pics like Kathy's trained attack hawks. Especially not killer butterflies from hell! :shock:


...JP

[1reb]

butterfly chasing bees ? How much mead was drink?

[danno]

Look like a rough legged to me.    Tell me how it hunts.   Does it fly at low altitudes, 4 - 6ft off the ground over the fields or does it fly high and sometimes kinda stop in mid air kinda back peddleing

[Keith13]

Kathy

I have a story to relate to your experience.
A few years back I was bush hogging a field. As I was getting toward the end I had maybe four or five more strips in the middle to cut. During each pass a little rabbit would shoot out from in front of me and back into the tall grass behind me. The rabbit did this until I was on my last pass. On my last pass I stopped and got off my tractor and walked in front to scare him out. I walked a few yards and jumped him up and chased him a hundred meters or so into the fresh cut field, so I wouldn't run him over. As I was getting back on my tractor to finish the last pass I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was still out there. What I saw was a red tailed hawk dining on a young cottontail made me feel bad, poor rabbit most have seen the hawk and knew he was toast as soon as he broke out of the weeds, such is life.
Also when we cut down here these white cowbirds follow the tractors they eat anything that runs out insects, snakes, mice not sure the proper name of them but sometimes you will have 30 40 birds chasing the tractor. Their funny to watch when a rat runs out a bird will grab it and fly away with a group of birds chasing him trying to steal it from him. Really breaks the monotony of cutting the field though.

Keith

[Kathyp]

Look like a rough legged to me

was this for me?  these bird sit in a very tall tree and watch me mow.  then they dive down on whatever i stir up.  when they fly off, if they don't go back to the tree, the fly parallel to the field.  most of the time i see them sitting in trees.  when they are not, they are flying in the usual hawk circles very high.

i have been told they are harriers, but i don't know.  much bigger than the redtails i used to have.  a smaller than a bald eagle.

keith, it's usually the crows that are in the field with me.  dozens of them doing as you described.  this time, not a crow to be seen.  they harass these hawks every day, but will not feed with them.

[danno]

The reason I asked how they hunt is because they do it so differently.  Harriers fly very low and hunt by sound.   They are the only raptor to do this.  As for size none are bigger that a female redtail. The only hawk bigger that a redtail is the  Ferruginous Hawk of the west.

[Kathyp]

you could be right about the rough legged. i was looking at some pics on google and they do kind of look like these.  i had redtails, but these ran them off a couple of years ago and have been the dominant bird ever since.  they are fun to watch, but i have seen them tearing up rabbits on the ground and i would not mess with them!  they really loud too.  especially when they sit in different trees and call the babies to fly.  it goes on for hours.

[danno]

Our redtail population is way down.  I think they were hit hard with west nile virus.   There isn't a vaccine for bird's so our falconry hawks have to be vaccinated with horse vaccine. 

[Kathyp]

we don't (yet) have a lot of west nile here.  about 5 years ago, these birds started showing up from time to time.  over the course of the next couple of years, i watched them harass the redtails.  one day, the redtails were gone and these were here to stay.  i felt kind of bad, the redtails had been here for many years.

i don't know if it's coincidence, but at the same time i lost the redtails, the swallow population went way up.  that's not a good thing for my bees.