Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 23:43:12 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Janet Millenson Subject: Re: Red-shouldered Hawks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Red-shouldered Hawk in my yard has been hanging around the feeder/pon= d area the last few days, but whether it's with sinister intent or just because it wants a drink is unclear. In general the other birds are not especially alarmed by its presence. It's certainly a pleasure to see this gorgeous creature so close to the house for a change. In the past, I've witnessed it successfully preying on a young rabbit (to= o heavy for it to lift), a chipmunk, a 2-foot-long snake, frogs at our tiny pond, and some kind of large grasshopper-type insect in an adjacent field= of long grass. Speaking of hawks... I've noticed that a Cooper's, sharpie, or other hawk that has swooped on prey but failed to catch it, or that has been unwillingly evicted from its perch, will -- when it lands on a branch again -- waggle its tail in what looks like an expression of irritation. = Or is the tail waggling merely a settling-in-place movement that they always do? Anyone else noticed this? First grackle of the season showed up at the feeder yesterday. Usually there's a huge flock of them (hundreds) by mid-February. (My parrot loves= to talk about "grackle birds.") Janet Millenson Potomac, MD janet@twocrows.com ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================