Northgate Hawks - 2008

August 6, 2008
Durham, NC

Equipment used for these photos:
Canon EOS 1D Mark III camera
Canon EF 600mm f/4L lens
Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO lens





This is a brief status report on the Northgate Hawks of northern Durham, which I've only recently started to observe. These are just a few of the photos I was able to take of the juveniles during a week in July. Next year I hope to track the birds through the entire nesting season, which should be very interesting, since the breeding pair are now well established in this location and the nest is highly visible from the ground.

I will be posting more photos from this season when I find time to process them.

Many thanks to my friend Mark from the Nature Conservancy for telling me about these birds!!





My first visit to this site was in late evening and thus required aggressive use of high ISO sensitivity (1250), since I decided the birds were too far for flash. After 45 minutes of Photoshop processing I was able to extract something moderately aesthetic:


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Just for the sake of comparison, here's the original image, with all the stats (EXIF data):


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There were actually two juveniles at this site this year, and they spent much of their time fairly close to one another --- usually within a few trees of each other, or occasionally even perching on the same branch:


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They seemed to spend most of their time hunting. And as you can see below, they were hunting some pretty formidable prey animals:


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Yes, that's an earthworm!

Although they mostly seemed to be catching beetles, I saw them catch a fair number of earthworms as well.  Below is a photo of one of the juveniles just after landing on the ground, feeling around with his or her feet for some tasty morsel in the grass:


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Before too long they tired of earthworms and grasshoppers and decided to try for something a bit meatier:


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Remarkably, the squirrel totally ignored the hawk, and the hawk clumsily teetered away from the path of the foraging squirrel. Apparently, juvie red-shoulders lack the agility to actually catch and kill a squirrel, and the squirrels know it. 

One thing the juvniles were exceptionally skilled at catching were sticks:

       
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The juvenile shown above was trying to get airborne with the stick s/he had caught. Note that the stick is roughly the size of a mouse. The bird actually seemed to have trouble attaining flight with the stick in its talons. This was clearly a good exercise for a bird hoping to graduate to larger prey than earthworms. I have photos of one of the juveniles "catching" pine-cones and making off with them -- I hope to post these soon.

When the bird shown above was finally able to get airborne with the stick, s/he took it to the top of a portable soccar goalie net:


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Here the bird fluttered about and worked hard to maintain its balance with the "prey" item grasped in one foot, leaving only one other foot for perching --- another skill the bird will surely need to master in the weeks ahead. Although I don't include any photos showing this, the bird shown above dropped his or her stick into the netting and then hopped down to retrieve it, getting caught in the netting in the process. This did not seem to bother the bird. He or she was much more interested in retrieving the stick than in getting himself/herself free of the netting.

Eventually his or her sibling came and confiscated the wooden "prey" item and also got caught up in the netting. Although I was afraid I'd have to intervene to help them get free, they were able to escape the netting themselves, and one of the birds successfully flew to a high perch, lugging the stick all the way.

After I'd had enough of shooting the birds in perched positions, I took the focal length down from 840mm to 600mm (f/4) and decided to try for some shots of the birds in flight.  Here are a few of the better images I was able to get (click to zoom):

       

   


Although I like these images, I did note that the bright sunlight resulted in some over-exposure of the white areas on the birds.  This is probably unavoidable in most cases, since turning down the exposure would result in under-exposure of the shaded areas of the bird.  I've recently started using Canon's "Hightlight Tone Priority" feature on the 1D Mark III camera to try to reduce the incidence of over-exposure in bright parts of birds.  I'm not sure yet how well it works.

Finally, here's a photo of one of the adults, who was hunting with the juveniles one day:



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This is the first sighting of the adult that I've had, showing that while the juveniles are very visible during this period, the adults are relatively aloof.  I don't know if they're simply hunting higher in the trees (perhaps for aerial prey), or if they're hunting outside of the park, or if they simply rest most of the day, since they're able to procure large numbers of calories with a single prey capture.


Stay tuned.



Update: August 10th

Melony from Raleigh was kind enough to inform me about a family of Cooper's hawks (quite different from Red-shouldered hawks, since they're accipiters rather than buteos) hanging out in her suburban neighborhood, and I was able to get a few decent photos during the hour I spent there last week.

The photos below are of one of the juveniles at the Raleigh site. Notice the longer tail with the thick bands (differentiating it from a Red-shouldered hawk), and the rounded end to the tail (differentiating it from a sharp-shinned hawk).

(click each photo to zoom)

         

          

In one of the two photos showing the juvenile from behind, you can see that the bird was gazing intently at something on the ground.  Following its gaze, I think I was able to identify the animal that the hawk was watching with great interest: Felis catus -- the domestic housecat.  I don't think the kitty has anything to worry about from this guy.





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