This morning, having my coffee out on the back porch, Swampwitch and I saw a red-shouldered hawk on the ground, then in a tree, where it was being…
stalked.
By a squirrel.
The squirrel was climbing all over the tree, less than a foot away from the hawk. Its tail was twitching slightly, but it wasn’t making any of the “danger!” noises I am used to hearing when they see my cat in the yard. The hawk ignored it for awhile, then went down on the ground, where the squirrel snuck up on it, ran past (in front) and turned around, staring it down.
Then the hawk went onto a low branch, where it got investigated some more, and then back down to the ground, where the squirrel finally chased it off!
It didn’t appear to be sick, it flew just fine. Perhaps it was full and didn’t want to bother?
I just thought that was weird enough to share. Anyone have possible explanations or similar experiences?
Squirrels are danger junkies and they’re just plain crazy. The hawk was obviously put off by the crazyness, probably afraid he’d get mad squirrel disease if he ate it. And he probably wasn’t hungry.
IANAS but this may have been diversionary behavior from a squirrel with young in the nest. Gray squirrels, those most common where you are, bear young in spring or late summer. The young stay in or around the nest for up to 12 weeks. So…could be.
I was hiking in an Arboretum several years ago when I came across a hawk and a squirrel acting much the way the pair in your story were. The main difference was that the squirrel wasn’t chasing the hawk exactly, but it wasn’t running away and it didn’t seem terrified.
The trees in that area were all less than 20’ tall (most around 10’-15’) and the hawk was flying into one specific tree and then back to the ground near the squirrel.
After thinking about it for a while, I wondered if maybe the hawk was immature. I think if it could have gotten farther above the squirrel, it could have killed it, but with only a short distance to build up speed, it couldn’t dive down and hit its prey with the usual force.
Squirrels are clever as a rule, but my guess was that they just don’t have that much face time with their enemies from the skies, so they don’t know what to do when they’re in close quarters.
You say that like it’s obvious that a squirrel can’t use the computer. They are infact the spies/hackers for the big game animals. They always seem to pass along the info that I’m taking time off from work to go hunting.
Could be the porcupines though, the counter-intel hasn’t been that good lately.
A couple of years ago, I was at work late at night and taking a break on a patio area. We were on the 22nd floor and the patio had clear glass railings. A hawk came into land on a railing, then muffed it (I think it was surprised by the human standing in the dark corner), and it ended up on the floor of the patio. Problem was, it kept wanting to get away from me and trying to push its way through the glass at the edges of the patio. It was also a pretty small patio, too, so it didn’t have a lot of runway to build up lift to go over the railing, not that it tried much since it was convinced it could push its way through the glass. I spent an hour helping that damn bird over the railing, but worth it in the end. It’s not often you get to watch a hawk fly away from you from above, much less with the city lights as a background. It was a beautiful sight.
The hawk ignored it for awhile, then went down on the ground, where the squirrel snuck up on it, ran past (in front) and turned around, staring it down.
