The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge.
We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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August 2018
Pacific Northwest
It all started with a dive in a bush, and a rustle there. I was standing on the shore watching for action out to sea and out of the corner of my eye saw a bird whisk by the clay bank. Camera out, I snapped some photos as it dove headfirst into a wild rose shrub, and thrashed around in there. All I could tell was that it was a hawk, by its look. But it wasn’t acting like one.
A small bird of some sort, finch or sparrow most likely, darted out of the bush heading straight for the larger thicket at the edge of the bank. The hawk followed, alighting on a root below, peering into the branches of the thicket.
After a while, the hawk flew up and over the thicket, out of my sight, and a few minutes later off into the trees. The little bird had escaped. But the hawk was out a meal.
Curious to learn more about this encounter I took a look at my pictures. The first thing I discovered was that the hawk was an accipiter, and second, that it was a juvenile (vertical streaks). Which explains why it had made such a clumsy and unsuccessful chase. Accipiters ambush their prey. Once the small bird knows a hawk is after it, the smaller bird can use its quick agility to get out of harm’s way. As it did in this case.
I felt bad for this very young hawk, who likely had been getting food from its parents not long ago, and now is on its own. I’m sure it’s hungry.
I hope it has better luck next time, as it hones its hawk skills.
So, what kind of hawk was it? Yes, I’m going to go there, once again…..
Was it a Sharpie or a Coop??
There are tools on the web that one can turn to for help on this age-old question. Since one photo showed the front of the bird well, I looked at a Feederwatch comparison page:
Based on this information I decided my hawk was a Sharpie, since it had thick, bold breast streaks, like the bird on the left above. INaturalist had that as a top suggestion for the fanned photo, although it suggested Coopers for the perched photo, so it could have been either.
I entered “Sharpie” at my iNaturalist account and waited for feathers to fly.
Within a couple of hours, someone else at iNaturalist left an ID disagreeing with mine, saying it was a Coopers.
So, being the humble naturalist that I am, I went back to online resources to see what else might cause someone to say it was a Coop not a Sharpie.
This visual below suggested they were right: my hawk’s fanned out tail was quite rounded, and had a white band on the outside.
The shape of the “ wrists” is more flat than than M-shaped.
Yeah, I had to admit, there were more features that matched for a Coop.
So I went back to iNaturalist to make a correction. Once there I discovered yet another member of the group had corrected me. Ok ok! I agree, it’s a Cooper’s.
None of us can be absolutely certain, but I do like iNaturalist as a tool both for suggesting IDs and for crowdsourcing IDs. In this case, three out of three naturalists agree, it’s a Coopers!
Have you had any experiences like this at iNaturalist, or other crowdsourcing sites? I mean besides the Daily Bucket. :)
and,
What’s up in nature in your area today?
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