[TN-Bird] Harrier Tornado

Dec. 28-29, 2002
Dyer and Lake Co. TN

Running the back roads this weekend, I discovered concentrations of Harriers, 
in fact for the first time in memory, Harriers out numbered Red-tailed Hawks 
on a weekend. Red-tail numbers have seemed awfully low so for this year but 
maybe it is just my imagination.

At the Bogota Bottoms on Saturday morning, I had 9 Harriers in view at one 
time. When I met up with Nancy Moore and we visited the area on Sunday 
morning, we counted 16 Harriers while viewing the Laps. At just about any 
location on both days you could scan around and have at least one Harrier in 
view.

Saturday evening, I decided to watch the rice fields north of Black Bayou in 
Lake Co. and there I counted 26 Harriers going to roost but only one 
Short-eared Owl was seen.

The best show was Sunday evening, when I went back to the Bogota/Obion 
Bottoms. The Harriers did things here that I had never seen or heard before. 
They came into a cut soybean field and started to just sit around in the 
open. Only occasionally getting up to harass a nearby neighbor but hey, that 
is how they got their name as it comes from an old English word, hergian 
which means "to harass by hostile attacks".

There was a small, maybe 1/2 acre of grass in the middle of this vast closely 
cut field and I could not imagine they would roost there but this was 
probably only a staging area much like individual Red-tails have before dusk 
from which they slip off to their final night roost. It kept getting darker 
and the birds started getting more active and generally congregating near th
is small patch of grass. 

At 5:05 PM they were all in the air swirling around in a tight tornado like 
circle, 17 female and immatures plus 5 small light males were seemingly 
chasing theirs and each others tails. At this time, as I was fairly close and 
all was quite, I heard for the first time ever their vocalizations. At 5:09 
the last bird had gone to roost and all had settled into that one small plot 
of grass. Pretty neat!

You never know when you might receive such a gift, so take some time and sit 
and watch for your a realization to come.

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.


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