I just had an interesting experience. It was dusk, about 5:30pm, and I was sprinting home on my bike from Stewart Park with a friend passing by the Golf Course where I was dive-bombed by a falcon-shaped bird. It was quite thrilling as I felt it come behind me and swoop over my off-white knit hat! Was it checking out my fibers???? Seconds before, three sparrow-sized birds swooped close in front of me from my left and over my right shoulder (I was pedaling fast at the time). As the sparrow-sized birds passed on, I heard Mourning Doves dashing all around. It was too dusky to identify anything other than the doves who were all around and scuffling with each other for who was going to get which tree. I could hear their wing beats and see silhouettes:
We followed the predator bird into a tall dense evergreen and waited. The person with me, riding behind me, said she saw the predator bird scuffle with a smaller bird as it approached my head with the smaller bird deferring and moving to my left. After a few minutes at the evergreen, the predator flew out toward me (again) and behind and circled me heading away from me and toward a deciduous tree about 100 yards away where I was able to see a clear silhouette. Tail pointed straight downward when perched, almost as long as its torso, had a straight edge on its perching tail, definitely saw a hawk-like bill shape. When it flew, I saw falcon-points. The person with me saw white on the underside...It flew from this last tree to a bramble clump in the middle of the golf course. We walked all around the dense bramble and could not find the bird. Any ideas? My first choice is Sharp-shinned Hawk for tail length and silhouette, but perigrine for flight shape. -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
