En(raptor)tured
Moving from city to country brings an entirely new soundscape. The car horns, sirens, and construction noise are gone. In their place: quiet, punctuated by birdsong. I can identify a fair number of birds by sight but sometimes, while working in the garden, I hear a bird singing its heart out from a protected spot in the boxwoods or meadow. What bird is that? Enter the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin Bird ID app, which can parse a cacophony of birdsong into unique species, all in real time (try it yourself; it’s amazing).
A few months ago, we began hearing a new sound, sometimes close to the house, sometimes out by the barn or meadow. But try as we might, we couldn’t locate the mystery bird. Merlin made short work of it, and informed me we were listening to a Red-shouldered Hawk.Â
From that day forward, we began hearing its call, all. the. time. And funny thing, once we knew what we were looking for we routinely spotted not just one, but two Red-shouldered Hawks hanging around our property. Most of the time we’d see them near the meadow, flying from tree to tree or perched in the majestic Ailanthus. But one day, we noticed something going on at the top of a walnut tree just outside the kitchen:
We’d seen that clump before and thought it might be a squirrel’s nest, but we heard the hawk’s call, and there it was. Red-shouldered Hawks re-use nests from year to year; it’s possible they were here last year and we just didn’t notice, being a bit busy running a black vulture nursery. Recently we’ve had a couple more hawk-on-nest sightings; in fact, it seems like they are trying out a few former nesting locations to see which one suits them best.
Realistically, we can’t expect any action on the hawks’ nest until spring. Their mating season runs from April through July, and the female will lay 3-4 eggs which incubate for 28-33 days. The juveniles will spend about 6 weeks at the nest. And here’s a fun fact courtesy of Cornell Lab:
By the time they are five days old, nestling Red-shouldered Hawks can shoot their feces over the edge of their nest. Bird poop on the ground is a sign of an active nest.
Well, now. That’s something to look forward to. 😀
While we wait for the hawks, there’s another local raptor pair worthy of your attention: the Dulles Greenway Eagles. A pair of Bald Eagles has nested at this location for over 15 years and now, for the first time, cameras are in place to monitor their activity. As this newsletter lands in your mailbox the pair are diligently maintaining the nest, and hopefully we’ll see eggs in late January or early February. You can check out the eagles and chat with other eagle-watchers here:
Follow Dulles Greenway Eagles on Facebook and/or Instagram
Watch on YouTube, where you can rewind the livestream to see what you’ve missed
Visit the Dulles Greenway Eagles website
I’ve signed on as a volunteer camera operator and chat moderator, so maybe I’ll see you there!
The eagles will be as much fun to watch as the grizzlies at Brooks Falls. Thanks for all of the links. Maybe you'll get a camera up for your hawks! We've seen and heard hawks flying high over us but not nesting that we can see. We have a lot of ground squirrels in our area so I'm certain the hawks have plenty of food. I've been using the BirdNET app (also from Cornell) to identify calls (I liken it to Shazam, but for birds, hahaha). Merlin looks more comprehensive because it allows for sight identification, too. Guess what I'll be downloading as soon as I finish here? Great post. Thanks!
We have a hawks' nest just off the back of our property in our neighbour's woodlot; it's fascinating when they fledge and come into our yard to check us out from our trees. Lucky you to see it up close and in person! I imagine the squirrels don't think so, however. I love their high skreeling call and watching them soar on updrafts.