Just witnessed and mostly heard an amazing display from a group of
red-shoulders right in front of my home. There is a pair that nests here (wooded
hillside) and I've seen and heard them often in the past couple years.
There was a crazy fight between the pair of shoulders and a pair of red-tails,
which I believe may have nested there previously. Then earlier this
summer, it seemed a strange female shoulder tried to interrupt the mating cycle
and there was a crazy day when they chased each other around. Today, there
were at least 5, perhaps six, birds carrying on for about an hour. They
were chasing each other through the trees, sometimes two would take to the
air and circle the area. At one time, I was two sitting in the tree in
front of me, two in the air and could hear at least one more over to the left
in the trees. Some of the voices seemed higher pitched than the others.
Because I have a difficult time looking up (neck injury) I could not get
close views of more than a few seconds. I just heard one of the birds calling
again outside.
I know this is the time when Great Horned Owls normally start urging the
teenagers to leave the nest. Could this have been something like that?
Marian Argentino
Darlington Road/Harford County
MJD405 at aol dot com |