[Umpqua Birds] Red-tail hawks mating behavior......
- From: "Rick Foster" <rdfoster52@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <umpquabirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2014 20:28:47 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
Hopefully I don't get scolded too harshly, reprimanded or banished from
Douglas County because even though this post is about birds...it's about
birds in a different county and contains inferences of sexual activity that
was witnessed but not definitively seen !!!! I work in Norway (Coos County)
in a small custom sawmill as a sawyer. Being on the edge of Coquille Valley,
I get to see quite a few raptors as they try to utilize the thermals even
when they doesn't appear to be any. I can turn around from my 52" circle saw
and have a very good view of the surrounding valley. Today I saw a pair of
Red-tail hawks (RTHA) circling above which they have been doing all week.
Then a 3rd one joined in and I assumed they were searching for food which
may have been an erroneous assumption, but as I wondered why they would all
be circling in such a small area, I briefly looked away (I was supposed to
be sawing logs lol), and when I looked back up 2 of them had joined together
by their talons and were spinning rapidly downwards. My first impression was
2 ice skaters holding hands and spinning faster and faster in a circular
fashion until they are just a blur.....which actually makes no sense to me
since I don't watch figure skating during the Winter Olympics. But it was an
amazing sight as they were descending and spinning faster and faster....
when I am sure I could imagine the male saying "I would love to cuddle
longer but we better separate soon before we crash onto that unit of 2 X 6
boards below us". Okay - maybe a bit too much anthropomorphizing...but
whatever their thoughts they separated. Since I was supposed to be sawing -
I had no Binocs with me plus my notoriously poor eyesight, so I never
actually saw any copulation going on but there was definitely no hostile or
aggressive looking behavior by either of them...they just went their own way
and slowly gained altitude again. I lost track of the 3rd one and eventually
the 2 main players as they slowly moved eastward.....towards Douglas County
This is the second time I have witnessed this activity from RTHA's - the
first being in the middle 1970's when I was a novice birder (I know many of
you think of me as still a novice birder, but I have it on good authority
that I am at least advanced beginner lol), and we were in the Anza Borrego
Desert east of San Diego. That time also included 3 RTHA's but that time I
actually saw two of them come together, one of them flipped backside down
and talons up and the second one moved effortlessly above it as they joined
talons also. The main difference then was they just kind of did a free fall,
no spinning like these 2 today did. I don't recall how far the free fall was
since I had nothing to gauge it against but they eventually separated and
continued with their circling.
Now for my 2 questions: Has anyone else seen this behavior with RTHA's or
other raptors? Would it be wrong for me to conclude that I was observing
mating behavior?
Rick Foster
Myrtle Point
Other related posts:
