{"id":13412,"date":"2013-03-18T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T07:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=13412"},"modified":"2013-03-17T20:38:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T02:38:06","slug":"one-red-tailed-hawk-six-canada-geese-and-one-huge-commotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/18\/one-red-tailed-hawk-six-canada-geese-and-one-huge-commotion\/","title":{"rendered":"One Red-tailed Hawk, Six Canada Geese and One Huge Commotion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week Mia and I enjoyed our first camping\/photo trip of the season.\u00a0 We explored some remote areas of northern Utah and even found some interesting birds.\u00a0 But the incident I’m reporting on here still has me a bit\u00a0perplexed.<\/p>\n

As we approached a large cliff on our right we noticed a small\u00a0 flock of Canada Geese at the top and they were raising quite the ruckus – honking loudly, repeatedly landing on the cliff-top, flying around it and then landing on it\u00a0again.\u00a0 We stopped and watched the hoopla for a few minutes but the light was bad and the angle steep for photography so very soon we moved on down the road.<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

On our return 42 minutes later the hubbub on the cliff was still going on – this is what we saw as we approached.\u00a0 The light was better now so we decided to pull over and see what\u00a0might develop, even though the\u00a0geese were far away.\u00a0 Notice how steeply the hillside rises to our left – that will soon come into play in this little mini-drama.<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

The geese were acting very aggressively at the cliff-top, often toward each other.\u00a0 In this series of three shots one bird chases another…<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

from the top of the cliff…<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

and down the front of it until I lost focus on the birds because of the cliff in the background.<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the time all six birds\u00a0perched at the top of the cliff while apparently\u00a0threatening each other and honking cacophonously but they repeatedly lifted off and flew around the area of the cliff.\u00a0 At first I assumed it was just a typical springtime disagreement among “birds of a feather”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But then, a surprise…<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/a><\/p>\n

While we were watching the geese this adult Red-tailed Hawk landed on the steep hillside immediately to our left that I mentioned before.\u00a0 It hopped around a bit, apparently looking for something and then…<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/a><\/p>\n

picked up a large branch and took off with it.\u00a0 I wish the bird were sharper in this shot but I wanted you to see it with the nesting material.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/a><\/p>\n

To my surprise the hawk flew the nesting material directly to the cliff and\u00a0beneath the geese.<\/p>\n

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\"red<\/a><\/p>\n

Here the hawk has just landed on the nest.\u00a0 I was amazed by how difficult it was to see this nest right in front of us.\u00a0 If the bird hadn’t flown to it we’d have never noticed it.\u00a0 To show you what I mean…<\/p>\n

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\"canada<\/a><\/p>\n

here’s the first image in this post, once again.\u00a0 This time I’ve marked the nest with a red arrow.<\/p>\n

So, what was going on here?\u00a0 Were the geese simply having a squabble among themselves and their behavior unrelated to the close presence of the nest, with the hawk presumably returning to\u00a0the nest again and again all morning with nesting material?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 But I do wonder…<\/p>\n

This is the beginning of nesting season for Canada Geese around here and there’s\u00a0nesting habitat nearby.\u00a0 Could the apparent aggression of the geese toward each other be misplaced aggression or a sign of frustration because they felt threatened by the presence of the hawk and nest\u00a0but these heavy-bodied birds\u00a0couldn’t really\u00a0directly\u00a0threaten the hawk at the nest on the vertical cliff face?<\/p>\n

Obviously I don’t know the answer.\u00a0 But it does seem to me to be a bit of a coincidence to see this\u00a0fuss from the geese, for such an extended period of time, with the nest so close to the site of the behavior.<\/p>\n

Either way, it was fascinating to watch all this go down.\u00a0 And to photograph it.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: I never did see the hawk’s mate. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Mia and I enjoyed our first camping\/photo trip of the season. We explored some remote areas of northern Utah and even found some interesting birds. But the incident I\u2019m reporting on here still has me a bit perplexed.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,334,1336,394,391,450],"tags":[1274,1337,228,231,1338,451,1162],"class_list":["post-13412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-behaviors","category-bird-oddities","category-birds","category-canada-goose","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-nesting-and-mating","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-aggressive","tag-canada-goose-2","tag-nest","tag-nesting-material","tag-nesting-season","tag-red-tailed-hawk","tag-western-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3uk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}