At 0800, I was getting ready to head to work, when I saw one of our local RED-TAILED HAWKS swoop through our feeder area. It perched in a large willow nearby, getting nothing. Our yard crows were going ape; then suddenly it got very quiet-crows gone. I thought the hawk was too, but closer inspection showed it staring at a GRAY SQUIRREL in a nearly pignut hickory. Then began a game of cat-and-mouse that lasted 20 minutes. The squirrel was in the central area of the large tree where there were 3 main trunks and many large branches going off. It stayed in this area, I think, because it offered the most cover. The hawk was right in there with it, and was much more clumsy, flying from branch to branch. The squirrel attempted to stay on the far side of a trunk, away from the perched hawk. This led to the hawk's strategy; it perched above the squirrel about 10', then dropped quickly down along one side of the trunk where the squirrel was, hoping, I guess, that the squirrel would at that moment zag out on that side to see where the hawk was. This failed several times. Finally it almost worked, the hawk appearing to graze the squirrel's side. This was enough for the squirrel; it shot down the trunk towards the ground. The hawk dropped like a stone after it-and missed. Squirrel then raced to a nearby hemlock, the hawk calling it a day.
Steve Fast Brooktondale -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
