SCOTT SHALAWAY Hawks aren't bad, they're just a fact of birding life

The evidence is usually obvious. A pile of brown feathers indicates a mourning dove. Red feathers mean cardinal. Yellow suggests a goldfinch. Whenever I find a bunch of feathers in the yard, I know a sharp-shinned or Cooper's hawk has come calling. And if I happen to be nearby when the kill occurs, the sky can rain soft, downy feathers immediately after an aerial attack.
It's no wonder backyard birds spook so easily.
Beak and talon
But given the realities of beak and talon, I understand. A fleeting shadow crosses the yard and, in unison, all the birds freeze or flee. If I detect the panic, I scan the nearby trees for the hunter. Bird-eating hawks can wreak havoc at backyard feeding stations.
But that's what these hawks do -- they eat birds. There's nothing you can do to "get rid" of the hawks, but you can make sure your feeding area is relatively safe. Hang feeders within 10 feet of trees or shrubs, which provide escape cover for smaller birds.
Another solution to the problem is attitudinal. Try to appreciate the drama of predator and prey. I tell myself I'm lucky when a hawk visits my backyard. It's not often I get a close look at such a normally secretive bird.
And it's rarer still to witness the matching of predator and prey. So I sit back and savor the drama. After all, the hawk doesn't always win. In fact, it usually loses. Typically, fewer than half of a hawk's strikes are successful. I feel fortunate to have observed several successful attacks.
Once, a group of Cub Scouts came to my house for a bird banding demonstration. I had trapped a few goldfinches in advance and after banding them, I let the boys take turns holding and releasing the birds. All but the last flew uneventfully into the hedge that surrounded the yard. The last goldfinch flew straight up -- a fatal mistake.
Grabbed the finch
As the finch flapped skyward, a sharp-shinned hawk that had been quietly perched in a neighbor's pine tree launched itself toward the goldfinch. Without missing a wing beat, the hawk grabbed the finch and flew to a favorite perch. There the hawk plucked its prey, then ate it.
After witnessing the brutality of nature, the boys eagerly listened as I explained that sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks specialize in killing other birds. In fact, as much as 97 percent of their diet is typically avian prey.
That doesn't make bird-eating hawks bad. That's just what they do. And if you feed birds, remember that. Sooner or later a sharp-shinned hawk, its larger cousin, the Cooper's hawk, or maybe a kestrel will visit your feeders. And it won't be seeds they're after.
Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks are easy to recognize, but difficult to distinguish. Both are blue-gray above and have reddish brown barring across the chest, and both species have a long narrow tail. Though sharpies are smaller, females of both species are larger than males, and the size of female sharpies and male Cooper's hawks can overlap.
Distinguishing female sharpies from male Cooper's can frustrate even experienced birders. At the extremes, a male sharp-shin can be as small as a blue jay, while a female Cooper's can be as big as a crow.
Witnesses an attack
A few summers ago I witnessed a sharpie attack from the air as it patrolled my yard here on the ridge. I was working outside when a hummingbird buzzed around the corner of the house. After turning the corner, it veered right and headed down off the ridge. A split second later came the speeding sharpie. It followed precisely the same flight path the hummer had taken and gained ground as I watched. When it snatched the hummingbird from the air, I heard a faint futile scream.
The natural reaction to predators that kill the birds we work so hard to attract is horror, anger and/or sadness. But life and death are inexorably intertwined. Every death sustains another life. Nature's cycle of life and death is neither good nor bad. It just is.
sshalaway@aol.com