Red-Tailed Hawk's Nest

[Daren Todd]

Yes....
View attachment 44448
Spring is in the air.

Grand kids got an education about the turtles at the St Louis zoo a couple years ago. They walked up to the turle pen and saw a similar site to your photos I let their parents explain that one

 

[bird dogger]

How about and ending to your interesting story.

Well, I did mention that it did heal up enough to fly and disappeared, never to make itself known again. Hopefully it led a full life.

This past summer a nesting pair raised their young high up in our woods and we'd hear them screeching and calling to their parents. Around mid summer or later I'd spot them around the open areas perched in a tree on the edge of the woods waiting to practice their hunting skills on fox squirrels running across the yard. That was a blast to watch. A lot of near misses and saw one apparently grab the ground and it flipped him over. That squirrel was lucky. later in the fall there was nary a squirrel to be found and the hawks disappeared. I think there were three young that survived to adulthood.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

Grand kids got an education about the turtles at the St Louis zoo a couple years ago. They walked up to the turle pen and saw a similar site to your photos I let their parents explain that one

I was at my neighbor's a couple of years ago and saw a similar sight. It was kind of painful to watch. Must say, I felt a little dirty.

 

[Magicman]

I have watched them get into that position. It takes total cooperation, determination, and perseverance.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

I have watched them get into that position. It takes total cooperation, determination, and perseverance.

And patience. Kind of slow motion (as you'd expect, after all they're tortoises not hares).

 

[Magicman]

Farting under the covers is no longer a bad thing.
It’s now called a Covid test. if you (she) can smell it you’re negative.

 

[lugbolt]

went fishing and the lake in September of 2020. Didn't catch much but an Osprey circled above the boat waiting for me to I guess drop a minner or a meal of some sorts. I guess after he (or she?) got tired of waiting for me, it flew off a few hundred yards and found one for itself. I actually grabbed the phone and started to video it circling above me and by time I got the phone out and on, it flew kind of away from me. Never seen an Osprey catch a fish up until then but I've seen Eagles do it, same area as they nest off in the trees. In Nov/Dec they migrate to this area and are pretty easy to spot when the leaves are gone. Thing is, though, they want NOTHING to do with humans or boats--I can never get close enough to get a good picture. The Eagles are much more graceful. That thing just dropped like a rock and hit the water about like one too.

Something I found odd about the Bald's. They want nothing to do with humans and they also have a call that is, well, odd. You see hawks calling and you can't miss a redtail's call. A bald eagle? About like a sparrow. High pitched more of a longer chirp than anything. They sometimes get upset if I run the boat close to their nests and they'll start chattering amongst themselves and their neighbors, as if they're telling me to get off their turf. Kinda makes me think of the old adage "speak softly and carry a big stick".

 

[RCW]

'Tis the season. Reviving my old thread.

Just guessing we have 3 or more Red Tailed Hawk nests behind the house, and maybe a Red-shouldered Hawk (?) nest as well. The white pine I pictured earlier is occupied, and a couple/few others as well.

Kind of neat....all within 100 yards of the house up the hill.

Yesterday was sunny and warm (35F - - warm for us in Feb.). Could seldom not see hawks up there.

Lots of RTH vocalizations. Saw some sparring between a RTH and the other smaller species mid-air.

 

[jyoutz]

True - HA! Don't think I've ever taken a selfie...WTF do I want to look at myself for!?!?

90% of my pics are my dog, food I cooked or car/truck/tractor parts before/during disassembly so I can get it back together..

With Bachelors Degrees in both Forestry and Forest Biology, I really like the outdoors. Nature pics don't happen often enough for me; I'd get something more capable for that, if I could use it more. I'm sure I'd still screw it up.

Maybe that'd be a retirement thing!



Yeah skeets, at first I thought what if they had a chicks and became territorially-protective-aggressive.

Not much I can do about that, but there's great view over my lawn, and I sure as hell have enough squirrels and chipmunks to go around. Got a couple cats that wander through, but I don't think they're big enough for them..too bad for that...

I don't think they're red-tailed hawks. Guessing Red-shouldered or Rough-legged. I'm better at identifying trees than birds...

We do now have Bald Eagles nesting a couple miles south. Have been for 10 years or so. I regularly see Eagles right over the house. Had 2 soaring over last Fall. One was really "cackling" to the other....guessing somebody was pissed...

Hello to a fellow forester.

 

[RCW]

Hello to a fellow forester.

Nice - - I ended up in the Environmental Health & Safety field 35 years ago. Not many forester jobs in the middle-'80's, except short-rotation plantation work in southeast US.

Just last week, one of our 30 y/o identical twin daughters was here. She wanted to take her 7th grade Leaf Collection home with her to downtown Philadelphia.

The collection was supposed to be a minimum of 20 species. The girls got 40+ with Dad's help. They had Sassafras, Catalpa, and even a Baldcypress.....

They used my college leaf collection as a reference. I think I had 162 species...

 

[Magicman]

Y'all grows um and I saws um.

 

[jyoutz]

Nice - - I ended up in the Environmental Health & Safety field 35 years ago. Not many forester jobs in the middle-'80's, except short-rotation plantation work in southeast US.

Just last week, one of our 30 y/o identical twin daughters was here. She wanted to take her 7th grade Leaf Collection home with her to downtown Philadelphia.

The collection was supposed to be a minimum of 20 species. The girls got 40+ with Dad's help. They had Sassafras, Catalpa, and even a Baldcypress.....

They used my college leaf collection as a reference. I think I had 162 species...

I’m a Silviculturist for USFS. Yeah, it was a different time back then for jobs. Now the federal agencies have mass hiring events for foresters so we can do all of the work directed by Congress in last year’s infrastructure bill. We want to hire just about every new forestry school graduate at this time.

 

[DustyRusty]

Neighbors small dog got picked up by a hawk last week when it was in the field. The hawk flew off with it with the dog screaming. about 20 or 30 yards away, the hawk dropped the dog in the woods alongside the field. They ran to the dog and it was scared, but not injured.
No shortage of mice around here this winter. I have seen them run across the garage floor a few times. I keep putting out mouse poison, and it keeps disappearing, and occasionally I find a dead one on the garage floor or outside in the driveway.

 

[Magicman]

I hates rats/mice. I had a rat to climb up on top of the transmission on a Chevy Caprice and cut the wiring. Had to drop the transmission to repair the damage.


Did I say that I hates rats/mice??

 

[RCW]

They’re back again. Don’t have a picture of a RTH yet this year, but a red tailed hawk went back into same spot a couple minutes ago…

Look forward to hearing a hatchling in a couple months. I think they’ve been successful two years in a row.

 

[DaveFromMi]

The other day, a coopers hawk flew into the pole barn rafters and couldn't figure out how to exit. It was a handsome bird, looked like a big parakeet. The cats were intent on having him for lunch and were in the rafters stalking him. I tried to shoo him out, but he couldn't figure out the exit. At night, I locked the door up and wished him the best of luck. The next morning, he was still evading the cats. When I opened the doors, he finally flew out.

 

[RCW]

Coopers Hawks are really cool and attractive, as you say.

Coopers Hawks specialize in feeding on smaller birds. Saw one take down a red winged blackbird. Pretty impressive for sure!

 

[skeets]

The property below me had a red tail nest, that had been used for well at least the 15 years we had been here. We would sit and watch them add to the nest and bring things for the young to eat. Then the property was sold, and the people that moved in,,, city people ,,, didnt want , as he put it all those dirty old rotten trees in his place. Well I figure it was his little slice of heaven go for it, though I did try to talk him out of it. The red tail nest went down, and everything else.
Ya would figure that being a new neighbor you would at least offer the trees for fire wood to people around you, nope he brought in a big machine pushed everything in to it and burned everything.
And it is a shame to say I have yet to see another pair of red tails around here since

 

[RCW]

Skeets - we have a lot of urban idiots here too.

Last year we thought there might be a couple other nests too. They might not have panned out, but the trees are a little further up our hill.

This tree is just 30 yards from our back door, so it’s easy to see and hear what’s going on….pretty cool.

 

[bird dogger]

A week ago a neighbor lady called me and asked if I had seen a giant bird in our woods. She sad it had flew into their glass patio door that night when their little dog was sitting there looking out into the yard. It was dark out. This giant bird was dazed for a minute sitting on their patio deck before flying off. The neighbor was now worried about letting her dog outside. I told her I hadn't seen anything like that and doubted it was after her dog.....but who knows.

The next day I was outside and the crows were going nuts over something in a tree behind my shop. Peeking around the corner to have a look I spotted a giant Great Gray Owl up high in one of our tall trees.
Pretty cool to see one of them in this area as they're normally farther north and into Minnesota or Canadain pine forests in this neck of the woods. While sitting in the tree that owl made the crows look like little blackbirds! It took off after a few minutes with the "tiny" crows heckling it.

There were three fresh owl pellets on our driveway the other day. They looked like and were about the same size as a full grown mouse. Hard to say if that same owl is still in the area or not. At least one owl is.

I had told the neighbor lady we saw the giant bird. It was a Great Gray Owl and had to be the one after her dog because the day I saw it.....it flew overhead and the sky darkened! Not sure if she's let her dog outside yet.