Native birds | My Gardener Says…

A neighbor alerted me to a Red Shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus, perched atop my SIL’s tree stump bordering my front garden. This handsome guy sat royally, observing his realm for at least one hour.

I’m not 100% sure it’s a male. If its mate was perched along side, the gender of each would be obvious: female hawks are bigger than their male partners. That being said, he’s not huge and usually, the girls are quite large birds. I’m sticking with my non-professional assessment that this hawk is a dude hawk.

I suspect it is one of the adult hawks who nested successfully in a tree around the corner from my house last spring, which you can read about here. Unhappily, about six weeks ago, I found some feathers–more than from a preening session–at a house on a street adjacent to my own. I don’t know what might have killed that hawk, as Red Shouldered hawks are apex predators for this neighborhood. I’m guessing that maybe the hawk victim was on the street and was hit by a car (though no blood, mess, or body was seen) or perhaps, the hawk died of rat poison. If that’s the case, whatever attacked and ate the sick hawk was also poisoned.

People, stop hiring companies that use rat bait stations. Despite what the company will tell you, that stuff kills more than rats. Check out this article from Audubon.

Recently, my lone hawk has perched in various spots around the neighborhood with no mate in accompaniment. I hope he finds a new mate; he’s a good-looking chap and I’m certain he has nice hawk manners. He was also a good provider to those two darling hawk chicks last spring.

I took these photos while wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Yes, in January: welcome to Texas winter weather. One day it’s shorts, the next day it’s parkas and boots. I’ll be packing those shorts away–at least for the very near future–as Texas is about to a receive a dose of icy freeze. All my blooming things will be done for the year and winter pruning will ramp up next week. Boo.

One can tell when there’s an ice event crossing the border into Texas, as our junior senator, Ted Cruz, hops a plane for a warmer place. This time it’s apparently that bastion of Blue, California.

C’mon, Ted.

You know what they say: The early bird gets the worm.

In this case, the early bird wasn’t the least bit interested in a worm, but instead chose dove or mockingbird as its breakfast of choice.

Just as it was light this morning, I spotted this juvenile male Cooper’s Hawk, Accipiter cooperii, enjoying a meal atop the remains of my neighbor’s Arizona Ash tree. The tree was damaged during the February 2021 freeze, but retained some of its lower branches. The upper branches all died and were removed last summer. What remains are some well-utilized perches for a variety of birds, including this beauty.

It’s possible that the hawk caught its prey yesterday evening, ate some of it, and saved the rest to finish for breakfast. I know I like left over pizza for breakfast, though I’d probably pass on dove. To each their own.

As I watched the hawk, it fluttered from the highest perch, to the one just below. I’m not certain what the advantage of the lower perch presented, but the hawk stayed for a bit, flying off later to spend the day hunting.

Observe that the outer bark of the tree is pulling away from the main wood. All of the trees damaged in that devastating freeze have similar shedding of of bark, some are larger pieces like this, some smaller. The birds don’t mind, though; it’s been fun to see the variety of birds making use of these large limbs. Everything from this big hawk to tiny hummingbirds perch on various parts of these limbs. I just have to remember to notice.