A Little Predator

For anyone who wants to see the best Hawk Moth shot yet, go over to Arizona Babylon,

where he's written a poem to accompany the shot, and refers to the Hawk Moth as a Sphynx Moth, which, of course, it is.

As we were carrying our breakfast outside this morning, E. and I noticed this Cooper's Hawk perched on a low, woodpecker riddled pine branch. It was the perfect vantage point to see both down to the chicken yard and over to the bird baths.

For two or three years, a pair of Cooper's Hawks nested in Kanga's tall Ponderosa Pines. After all, with all those bantam chickens running about in our yard next door, it was a perfect place to bring up the kids.

The whole neighborhood enjoyed watching the chicks grow and we were all amazed and amused by their pathetic attempts to fly. They crashed clumsily about, banging into tree branches and taking dizzying spills toward the ground before they mastered the art. But master it they did, and of course they learned to hunt chickens.

The chickens, however are quite sensitive to any shadow moving across the ground and quickly alert each other to danger. The hawks caught few chickens, but proved very good at hunting down the Eurasian Doves that have infiltrated our neighborhood in the last four or five years.

The Eurasain Doves, not a native species, drove both Mourning Doves and Inca Doves from our neighborhood, so the hawks have restored some balance to nature. The last I heard, we had been the only neighborhood in Prescott to host Inca Doves. Normally, they are found at lower altitudes, but a little colony had settled here and we were sad to see them driven out by the much larger E. doves.

Taken against the light, this picture is misty, but shows the yellow low on the hawks underbelly.

By the way, both chickens and birds were notably absent or hidden. I don't think a hawk has an easy time catching his dinner.