Battle Between the Hawks and Crows

Our little subdivision sits astride a short, dead-end blacktop that arcs down to and over a small stream surrounded by old trees -enormous poplars, sourwoods, hundreds of small beeches and a few large pines. It might qualify as a wildlife habitat.

The beeches are giants in the making and few homeowners permit them to survive for long. The drop small dead limbs year round and guard their leaves, holding on to them until we have at last finally raked up those that fell earlier (by the tons) from other trees -oaks, maples and and poplars. Some ellowed and rumpled leaves hang onto Mrs. Beech until the new leaves begin to appear. Our beech is the only one on this street that has been allowed to become part of the landscape. It has grown into a beautiful specimen that dominates our front yard and provides shelter for a small but changeable population of critters.

Only the Brown Thrasher -Georgia’s state bird- seems to be a year-round resident, constantly scratching and “thrashing” around in the dried leaves we leave as mulch year round. Groundhogs, chipmunks, foxes, box turtles and squirrels come and go. We have only seen a single snake in our yard in twenty years, a beautiful four -foot King snake that used to writhe around in our oldest rotting stumps where the Chipmunks and Field Mice seemed to hide out. Now that the stumps have rotted and fallen in we see no more snakes -ALTHOUGH, an occasional Copperhead is reported in the neighborhood. Since we erected our wooden fence, we seldom see turtles in our back yard. I miss them and go looking for them in the front yard where there eggs will be safe from or Labrador, “Emily.”

The stream that passes under our street and runs beside our home is fed by year-round springs. There is clearly a game trail along its bank. Foxes, racoons, deer and possums seem to use this stream as a pathway east and west to reach sizable forests and fallow fields where small farms once existed.

Even with so many animal passersby, it is the birds that we most often see and enjoy. It is shaky ground for amateurs like me to try to describe the behaviors and motivations of the birds around our house. But inadequacy does not deter me from doing so. We have lived here more than twenty years and the Red-Shouldered hawks are an ongoing source of admiration and curiosity for us. Most years they seem to be hunting as a family of three, with the parents spending their leisure training last year’s fledging.

I read that typically only a single chick will survive from each clutch of eggs. And, they seem to mate for life. Their sky domain can be treacherous, filled with drones, lead shotgun pellets, and competitors larger and smaller, buzzards, Redtail hawks, Coopers hawks, swifts, bats and crows. Often Red-Shoulders are mistaken for Redtail hawks. Much larger than Red-Shouldered hawks, Redtails (sometimes called “chicken hawks” ) are hunters over open fields and barnyards. They do sometimes attack domestic fowls -notably chickens, though geese are too large and combative as adults. When I was a boy, farmers kept a shotgun on their tractors when plowing and routinely tried to shoot down any hawk that ventured over their fields. Red-Shouldered hawks usually hunt in woods and along waterways. Like, owls, their stubbier wings allow them to navigate through the woods where they prey on amphibians, vermin and even large insects.

Occasionally one will surprise us by checking out our birdfeeder -which can be unnerving if I walk outside with a cup of coffee or birdseed early in the morning. Compared to the expected Titmouse, Wren or Blue Bird, a Red-Shouldered hawk can appear enormous.

Only one of their hatchlings seems to survive each year, even at best. This is probably typical of most birds of prey -only the biggest, strongest chick survives the nest. As suggested by Darwin, sibling competition for food brought to the nest by their parents favors the stronger of the chicks, so it thrives at the expense of its siblings.

They are not the only watchers in our skies. Crows also station look outs around the neighborhood. Often they will call the rest of their flock to harass the hawks. When we hear the agitated crows clustering overhead, we often see them flying aggressively at the hawk as if they were pecking at its eyes. This continues until the hawk alights on a limb. Then the situation changes. I imagine the crows are afraid to approach the hawk once it has landed. I also imagine the hawk has landed near a crow’s nest in hopes that lunch is available- scrambled eggs or a tender crow fledgling. The crows raise a riotous ruckus once again -hoping to distract the hawk from its meal. Soon, the hawk leaves and the game is over for the time being. Peace returns to the tree tops.

Articles and tv shows proclaim the intelligence of crows, especially their ability to recognize human beings who have threatened them in the past. Would I seem paranoid if I said , I believe their watchmen call other crows toward me when I go outside sometimes? A moment ago there was a single crow, I look up to see half a dozen in a nearby tree -and still more are arriving. I must tell you I once killed a crow, which may explain their interest in me.

As an eight-year-old with a brand new Daisy Red Ryder air rifle modeled after the famous lever action 1876 Winchester rifle, I was anxious to emulate my father and grandfather, by skillfully killing birds. They were armed with twelve gauge shotguns and accompanied by white and brown-spotted pointers, dogs especially trained to ferret out quail in the tall grass. I had no dog and thought it unlikely I could hit a bird in flight, but suddenly a crow alighted in the uppermost branch of a big pecan tree. I thought it was an impossible shot, but decided to aim far above the crow’s head. My tiny BB struck the huge black bird squarely in the eye and he fell through the leafless branches of the pecan tree like a feathery rock.

Of course, I never told my parents or grandparents about this remarkable accomplishment -they lived by the rule “only shoot what you intend to eat.” While I have eaten a great deal of crow over the years since, I decided I did not wish to eat this one. The secret has remained with me until this very writing.

While the crow sightings are increasing, the hawk sightings are declining since a new subdivision went up about a mile away.- and still another new subdivision has sprouted overnight across the main road. Disappearing, too, are the laughing calls of the Piliated Woodpeckers that once haunted the creek bottom near us. Sometimes mistaken for the all-but-extinct Ivory Bills, they used to come to our windows to fight or mate with their own images reflected in the glass. And, they are big birds -startling when we encounter them up close at our windows. They left when an auto garage was build on a nearby highway. Given the noise, I thought of leaving, too.

At our garden club, we hear constant complaints about the deer eating the recently planted flowers -which leads one to wonder why someone would move into the woods (or into what was once woods) to be “close to nature” and then feel irritated with the wildlife. Such is human nature, I suppose. We assume nature exists to provide us with pastoral delight or to keep us entertained. But, just as my indignation rises, my self righteousness asserts itself when the squirrels converge on my bird feeder. I turn Emily loose on them. She is pretty darn fast. Human beings. We may well be the most irrational of all life on earth.