A Predator over Russell Creek Area: live actions on the ground and in the sky

I spotted a hawk in our community a few times before, but never got a good look at it. 

On May 28th  morning, as we walked along a south-north street, a big bird flew toward us from north, and perched on a tree right in front us, it was so well camouflaged, the most visible part of its body was its white front. It flew away as I tried to get a better picture of it. 

 

Somehow I knew that it was a red-tailed hawk.

By pure luck, we got a much better view of a red-tailed hawk in action in a neighbor's front yard bush on June 14th: it was eating a mouse live, with one talon stepped on the mouse, using its sharp hooked beak biting into the mouse and teared its flesh... and also played with the mouse! 

When it noticed another mouse moving behind it along the foundation, it went after that mouse, flapping its wings clumsily in the confined space, but caught the mouse in a few seconds nevertheless. It had two mice under its foot now!

A week after the amazing witness of live action of a red-tailed hawk, we were alerted by mockingbirds' screaming, looking up we saw a red-tailed hawk standing on a roof in the setting Sun and a few territorial mockingbirds flying around the hawk, screaming, apparently trying to drive it away from their territory. They tried to get really close to the hawk, but never touch it.

 

No matter what the mockingbirds did, the hawk just stood there ignorant of their antics, minded its own business, preen its feathers, looking around, and in fact staring at my camera a few moments. I waved my hand and its head turned with my arm!

The mockingbirds on the other hand, got tired after a few tries and they would rest on the trees around, and even on the chimney close to the hawk, for a minute or two, and then started another round of their antics.

We stood there for over 10 minutes with great interests to watch this lively and amusing theatrics in nature. We hoped to see that the hawk was eventually annoyed and took off, it did not during our stay there, so we left when the actions repeated another round.

How we hoped that we could get a closer look at the Hawk, ideally in flight.

The next day, we walked to the same street, and we heard mockingbirds' screaming again, looking around we did not see the hawk anywhere. I walked around the noisy area, and finally spotted the hawk perched in a pine tree!

 

Apparently the Hawk(s) roosts in the area.

Guess what?  Two days later, we saw two Hawks, on top of two adjacent roofs, one big, one a bit smaller (presumably young hawk). Mockingbirds were doing their usual antics - as I aimed my camera at them, the young hawk took off from the roof top, and mockingbirds following. Unfortunately I did not got the this action in the flight on camera, too amazed to watch the live show in my own eyes. For the big hawk, it was the same show all over again but against a brighter blue sky.

 

The really interesting  happening occurred the next day.

We were on our routine evening jogging, and it was a quiet day as far as bird watching was concerned; it was a cloudy day as well, nothing special happened, besides the usual mockingbirds, blue jays, and crows. On the way home, as the Sun set, a big bird swooped toward us, and perched on the top of a vent nearby, it was apparently a young Hawk, much smaller in size. After a few seconds, it flew to us and into a tree across the street! There was  a big nest in the tree! Wow!!

This morning (June 27th)  the big Hawk was resting on a small pine tree by the soccer field, and of course the mockingbirds alerted us of its whereabouts :) . This time we really could see it close and saw its tail  - not really a red tail.

I believe that the hawks have been around for quite a while in our area. We spot them more frequently because we have been out of the house more frequently in the mornings, in the evenings, at dawns, or at dusk, walk in the open for half hour to a couple of hours each time. 

Bird watching, is, in a sense, a problem solving process of identifying where to watch. There are natural laws. It is exciting, thrilling and satisfying, because nature always amazes me!

Explore Nature Have Fun!

Incubation, Hatching, Nestling ... Empty Nest: Epilogue - Ornithology

Ornithology - a branch of zoology which concerns the study of birds.

As far as origin is concerned, birds are dinosaurs, avian dinosaurs to be exact, their lineage goes back to over 160 million years ago. Scientifically, birds are a group of feathered theropod dinosaurs, and constitute the only living dinosaurs. Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians.(Wikipedia).

The close observation of house finches' life on my front door made me want to know more about them - the primary source of information for me is the ornithology site "All about birds". House finch belongs to Passeriformes order, Fringillidae family, haemorhous genus, and has a scientific name of haemorhous mexicanus. They live in north America. 

House finches' range

Male house finch has red head and breast, female house finch has brownish color. They sing long, twittering, pleasant songs.  The red of a male house finch comes from pigments contained in its food during molt (birds can’t make bright red or yellow colors directly). So the more pigment in the food, the redder the male. This is why people sometimes see orange or yellowish male House Finches. Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find, perhaps raising the chances they get a capable mate who can do his part in feeding the nestlings.

Where do they live? How do they mate? How long do they live? ....

Surprisingly house finches, and birds in general, they don't live in their nests! The nests are for incubation and nestling. Once they grow up, they leave the nests and not return, as I observed of the finches on my front door.  So where do they sleep at nights? They just perch on a tree branch or even a windowsill for the night. 

A curiosity is how they mate. It turns out, the mating process is somewhat like many animals, male mount on female and intercourse. But for finches, this process is very quick, a couple seconds:  the hen squats in the ‘mating position’, lifting and vibrating her tail. The male then mounts her, and impregnates her with a perfunctory ‘cloacal kiss’, in which the all-purpose vents of the two birds make brief contact. His wings will flap as he pushes against her, the procedure is over in a couple of seconds, as captured in this video from YouTube. 

It is noted that house finches are monogamous in breeding, typical of song birds.

After mating, the female will lay ~ 4 eggs in the nest. The nest is of cup shape, Overall width of the nest is 3-7 inches, with the inside cup 1-3 inches across and up to 2 inches deep, so the nest on my front door was typical.

The finches' incubation time  is 13-14 days, nestling time  12-19 days. During the nestling period, the finch parents will feed the babes, and carry out feces initially and when young defecate too much, the droppings will be moved to the edge of the nest. The young finches fly out of the nest at the end of nestling period, and not to return, though they may live just in the surrounding area.

In contrast human's life  from inception of pregnancy to the baby walking steadily, which lasts about 3 years (156 weeks), on the other hand, house finches' growing up time from an egg to flying out of the nest, lasts only five weeks or so. House finches can live up to at least 11 years and 7 months in the wild. 

The circle of bird life continues, after 160 million years!

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Note

We rarely see dead birds despite the abundance of them around the communities. Birds, like many other creatures, will seek secluded places when they're feeling sick. Sick birds will go to ground and hide away. Sometimes, rest and seclusion help them to recover, but if they die there, they sometimes won't be found in their hideouts. In nature, things work in tandem. Scavengers and predators, such as rats, cats or foxes, can usually seek out these hideouts for prey. Often, these predators will eat the prey themselves or take them back to feed their young, which is why it's rare to find the remains of dead birds. Due to a bird's light body mass, those that aren't found by predators or scavengers will decompose rapidly. Insects will cover any dead body quickly and the bird would soon decay before it is found. (source of information). When dead birds are frequently observed in some area, that means there is a bird pandemic there. 

Incubation, Hatching, Nestling ... Empty Nest

This is a photo journal of our observations of house finches in our front door flower basket, from incubation, hatching, nestling ... to empty nest.

On May 2nd, I noticed that there was a tiny bird nest built in this basket when I was about to take it off for the season. I kept it on the door to  allow house finches to produce their next generation, and started our more than 5 weeks of observations of this pleasant bird family on our front door.

A week later, when we looked at the basket again, we saw 4 eggs neatly lay in the nest. Knowing that finches might abandon the nest if it was tempered. We refrained from checking on the nest and the eggs. Incubation period started, which is about 13 - 14 days for house finch per 'all about birds'.

In the following two weeks, every time we got out from the front door, for running or jogging, we noticed that when the door knob was turned, the mom bird, see above photo, would promptly fly away, and perched on a tree branch looking over the nest, and kept chirping ....like saying please leave now so I can get back to hatch my eggs. In fact it did fly back to sit on the eggs after we left for a while. We were pretty sure about this because every time we came back from running/jogging, the mom bird would fly out of the basket again to perch on a tree branch to chirp, frequently the daddy bird joined her as well. 

The male finch, which has red head and red breast, see photo below, is typically on patrol, and will alert the female bird of any coming danger. Initially the female bird would fly away from the nest when we were about 3 yards away from the door. As time went by, it seemed to recognize us, and would take off when we just turned into our walkway from sidewalk. 

House finches' incubation time is 13-14 days. So the eggs should have hatched around May 23rd. On May 26th, around noon time, when I opened the front door for a after lunch walk around the block, I noticed that the mom finch was not at the nest, I looked around and did not see or hear either house finch parent. I took the basket down, and looked inside, saw 4 fluffy balls, the eggs were hatched! I quickly took a picture and put the basket back. I reported to Lily about the exciting news via text. The next period is the nestling period. In this period the baby birds would stay in the nest, they have wet feathers and too young to fly. They will stay in the nest until their feathers are dry, and longer and stronger.

The nestling period lasts about 12 - 19 days. I estimated that the baby finches would fly away around  June 6 to June 12th.
The house finches were seen and heard more frequently - they were on high alert because this was the most venerable time of baby finches life. Their frequent appearance and bird songs attract the attentions from two pairs of northern mockingbirds which have their nests in the two smaller "bulb shaped" trees in our front yard. Mockingbirds would chase them away from time to time. The house finch parents would then perched on a big tree in my next door neighbor's yard - where they could clearly see my front door area! Sometimes, the finches would use a tactic to lure the mockingbirds away from my front yard - the finches chirp loudly to attract the mockingbirds and fly away - mockingbirds would follow, and then get lost; and the finches would return to our yard long before mockingbirds did. The tactic works!

By now I noticed the finch parents would be away during noon time to forage food for their babes. On June 2nd and then June 4th, I looked at nestlings and saw them grow into shapes. They stayed there motionless and with dull eyes. They ate more and defecated more. But I was not sure if the droppings around the bird nest were from bird parents or the bird babies. There were so many droppings, they spilled over and fell on my door step, and attracting flies. We actually had to clean and flush the front door step once.

On June 7th, when we returned home from running in the morning, I noticed three finches standing on the roof, and chirping loudly, and looking down. I told Lily that those were the finch parents and their newly grown-up, calling on the remaining nestlings to take the flight into the world! 

As we opened the door to get in, the birds flew onto the tree branches so they could see the nest directly. Our curiosity got us, we kept the door ajar, and looked into the basket sideways, we saw a baby bird sitting in the nest, alert, but did not move. We closed the door and left it (them) alone.

In the evening of June 7th, when we returned home from after dinner walk, I did not see or hear any finches around, so we decided to take the basket down from the hook to take direct look to see if all finch babes are gone. As Lily was removing the basket, the last finch flapped its wings and flew out of the nest and away. That's the last nestling  at the nest. We got an empty nest in our hands!

House finches use the nest only once for incubation and nestling. They rarely reuse the nest. I waited for a couple days, just in case the young finches would return for one last night. They never did. 

After two days, no more finches in the nest, and in fact no more house finches chirping in my front yard, with nostalgia, we took down the basket with that empty nest, cleaned our front door.  Our life is back to normal.

Note

This has been a unique five week period of our life, in addition to our regular life, we paid close attention to another species. In five weeks, we witnessed the life of house finches from the baby birds's birth, to their growth and maturation, and eventually their brave flights into the world. We also witnessed the house finch parents' care to each other, dedication to their babes, and heard their beautiful bird songs and pleasant chirping. What a heart warming experience!

Bird Watching Notes

Bird watching is an exploration. It requires observation, thinking, connecting the dots, and perseverance. It is frequently exciting, thrilling and satisfying. Here I write about some very interesting observations, last Friday, June 5th, 2020, of a few common birds in our neighborhood.

Mockingbird

There are quite a few northern mocking birds near my house and I knew there was one nest in a tree in my front yard. They typically appear calm and sing pleasant bird songs. But mockingbirds are very territorial, and they will scream and shout when other birds encroached on their territory. I observed a mocking bird chase another mockingbird away, saw a couple of mockingbird chasing a big crow away, and mockingbirds scaring house finches who built a nest in a pine tree next to their tree, see the story here.

Last Friday, June 5th, from an eventful bird watching outing (more later), we saw a mocking bird was pecking and chasing a squirrel away from my yard into the street! The bird did not let up even when the squirrel was climbing onto the fence across the street. The bird flapped its wings, and made noise until the squirrel disappeared into the big tree in the neighbor's yard. Unfortunately we were amazed and amused by the acts so much we did not even take a picture.

The week before while trimming another tree, I noticed there was another mockingbird nest in another tree, I saw mom mockingbird fly in and sit on the next!  Surprisingly, while checking the inside of the tree, I saw another bird nest. There are 2 nests in 1 tree! Not sure if these are two mockingbird nests, or the other one was from Robins.

Northern Cardinals

Northern Cardinals are another common birds in our area. The male adult cardinals are especially eye catching due to their bright red feathers and pleasant bird calls. They like to perch on tree top or roof top to make calls - so it is not hard to spot them!

On the morning of  Friday June 5th, as we jogged toward the community park, we heard a cardinal's call, looking toward the source of the sound, I saw a bright red bird standing on the tip of roof ridge, making calls. The bird was right above us, under the morning sunlight, it was at a perfect position and time for pictures. As the bird noticed that I use cell phone to take pictures of it, it moved its head up an down, twisted its neck from left to right, raised its wings, seemed to pose for me 😊. Most likely it was just curious about me and my cellphone and just checking us out in different view angles.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

The same morning of June 5th, as we arrived at the Russell creek pond, we noticed that there was a slim heron standing on a grass float in the pond, motionless, with a pair of dull eyes. It did not flinch when we walked close (on the bank) and I made a few whistle bird calls. We noticed that it had white feathers pointing backwards, and realized it was not the usual blue heron we see at the pond. Lily said it might be the weedkillers that park service used to kill the invasive floating grass that made the heron sick. The comment made me a bit sad because I asked park service to remove the invasive grass a couple weeks ago. But I argued that heron don't eat grass, they eat fishes.

A quick Google Lens and SEEK check revealed that it was yellow crowned night heron.

As we walked to the other end of the pond, we saw another yellow crowned night heron, but much bigger;  it was standing on the guard rail of a pedestrian bridge, motionless, dull eyes .... I took pictures of it every step of the way, closing in on it. It did not move until I was about 2 ~ 3 yards away; it just calmly jumped off the guardrail into grass land,  2 ~ 3 yards away from the walkway, not scared or startled at all, walked a couple steps and stopped.

I stood a minute or so longer to watch it and moved on.

Checking the bird out on internet, it turns out what we saw were very typical of this bird. I was relived that its clumsiness and dull eyes were not due to weedkiller.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

After we spotted scissor-tailed flycatcher a few weeks ago, a new sighting to me this year in our community, we are on lookout to it every time we walk to the soccer fields at the community park. We saw it many times since.

The bird likes open field, and enjoys jumping and gliding against light wind.

scissor-tailed flycatcher playing in the wind

This evening we avoided the pond, too many people there, and walked along the perimeter of soccer fields. We saw a scissor-tailed flycatcher landed on the top of a light pole, a rarity in weeks observations, they typically stay on the ground, and fly low, a ~ 3 feet off ground, and occasional fly on to 6 feet tall fence. It was a young scissor-tailed flycatcher, it flew away onto the fence of soccer field. We followed it, and tried to take a picture of it when it was flying, expanding its scissor shaped tail. Before we got close enough, it flew down the fence, swirled in the air to show off its wings and tails , flew back to the fences, nonchalantly looking away. I tried getting closer to it to get a profile of the bird with its long tail. It flew into the soccer field behind the fence,

Lily said the bird was kind of taunting me with its moves. 😃