Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 10:36:45 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Huy Subject: Re: Bizarre Red-tailed Hawk Behaviour MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Paul is probably correct. Its a rare thing to see and people often mistake it for an injured bird. Same with a hawk manteling over prey, people think it must be hurt because it seems so unusual. Its common behavior, but birds tend to do these things in private, hidden from predators like us. You were lucky to observe this behavior, a hawk totally at ease, enjoying a bit of sun. Steve Huy Middletown, MD "This is typical sunbathing behavior which is fairly common this time of year. If you look around you can see many birds engaging in this type of behavior,. Although there is some debate about its purpose the most likely explanation is that it is a way of getting rid of feather mites. Paul Woodward Fairfax City, VA 22032 grackling@att.net Hi All, > > This evening around 6pm my family and I saw a > Red-tailed Hawk do the strangest thing I've ever seen > a bird do - lay down on a roof. It was on its belly, > on the peak of my neighbour's roof, with its wings > outstretched along the slope of the roof. (At least > the wing on our side of the house was outstretched. I > am assume the other one was, too.) The bird seemed > alert as it kept its head raised and was looked around > fairly actively. It was already in this position when > we noticed it, so I don't know how long it had been > doing this. Initially we thought the bird must be > injured, but about 5 minutes after we noticed it, it > stood up and started preening. After preening for > about 5-10 minutes it flew off>" ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================