Ruthless killers living in my backyard.

[jtur88]

@Baker

Wonderful pictures of Harris Hawks! My sister ID’d them for me.

You’re right, they are Harris’s. A little bit surprising to see them as far north as Scottsdale, I think. The movie “Caracara” starred a Harris’s Hawk, not a Caracara as we were led to believe.

[Little_Pig]

We had a young pair living on our property. Loved it. All of the crows blew town. But a more uncoordinated duo I have never seen. They’d fly into buildings, miss tree branches that they were aiming to land on and, in general, were a hoot (to neighboring Owls?) to watch. Chipmunks and squirrels would seemingly make gestures of “Catch me if you can”. They couple finally packed up their bags to my dismay. I wondered if this was common.

[beowulff]

@Little_Pig

We had a young pair living on our property. Loved it. All of the crows blew town. But a more uncoordinated duo I have never seen. They’d fly into buildings, miss tree branches that they were aiming to land on and, in general, were a hoot (to neighboring Owls?) to watch. Chipmunks and squirrels would seemingly make gestures of “Catch me if you can”. They couple finally packed up their bags to my dismay. I wondered if this was common.

Some more from this afternoon:
https://flic.kr/p/mVfV2a
https://flic.kr/p/mVfWdD
https://flic.kr/p/mVgaai

You mentioned that your hawks were clumsy. Here’s a sequence where on lands practically on top of the other one:
https://flic.kr/p/mVi4Lu
https://flic.kr/p/mVi5dS
https://flic.kr/p/mVi5Y9

Up, up, and away!
https://flic.kr/p/mVfYKx

[Little_Pig]

Thanks beowulff . I guess it is common.

[Melchior]

@leftfield6

Great pictures. I too have hawks (red-tailed) that buzz my backyard. We have a number of bird feeders up, so we get a variety of wildlife. Birds, of course, but also los of squirrels and chipmunks. It’s the chipmunks that I think are the big draw for the hawks. I have seen hawks take out a few pigeons as well.

Love seeing large birds. From my back deck, I overlook a fairly large pond that has a lot of open fields around it. Perfect hunting grounds for hawks, and have even seen one or two eagles.

Do they ever go after baby geese? If not. how can we motivate them to do so?

[beowulff]

@Melchior

Do they ever go after baby geese? If not. how can we motivate them to do so?

Well, I haven’t seen any baby geese in my back yard, so clearly, they must eat them!

[Diceman]

There’s a bird of prey of some sort (don’t know if it’s a hawk or falcon or what) that lives in our neighborhood. Once I just happened to look out the window at the exact moment that it flew down and carried off a squirrel from the front yard of the house across the street.