SHARPI STRUCK AGAIN

Sharp-shinned Hawk

We received quite a bit of snow today, the first time this season worth to talk about. The numbers of birds visiting our feeders increased with every snow flake that hit the ground. The first thing I saw this morning while looking at the birds was our Sharp-shinned Hawk sitting in the snow of the driveway. I knew immediately what had happened because I witnessed it before at other times. The hawk had caught some prey midair and just rested with its kill for a moment. When the Sharpi finally took off I saw a small bird in its claws, probably a poor junco or a finch that wasn’t fast enough to hide.

The photo above is not from today but it lets us imagine what a fierce predator the Sharp-shinned Hawk is. With their distinctive proportions, long legs, short wings, and a long tail they can move in an acrobatic manner between trees and at top speeds in pursuit of small birds or mice.

RETROSPECTS 2023 - #6

Sharp-shinned Hawk, Little Maquoketa Valley, Iowa, February 2023

This is the raptor every other bird pays utmost attention to in our woods, the Sharp-shinned Hawk. When all the woodpeckers or nuthatches freeze motionless and the sparrows and finches disappear suddenly, we just know the ”sharpy” is somewhere around here. Sometimes we don’t see him or her but all the birds obviously do and immediately adapt their behavior. They are able to move very fast between the trees without hitting a branch and can strike with surprise. I have seen a Sharp-shinned Hawk taking a Northern Cardinal down mid air. What follows is usually not very pretty but nature’s rule requires that they all have to eat sometime for survival…

In early February this hawk spent more than half an hour in great light near our bird feeders and the only difficulty to overcome was to find a position with the camera that had an unobstructed view between the trees. It was just another great moment in 2023 and worth to mention again.

SEEKING ITS CHANCE

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Here are two more photos from last weekends’s shooting in the “front yard studio”. Our Sharp-shinned Hawk didn’t care about me standing on the porch at all and gave me 36 minutes to make new pictures while he was waiting for a chance to catch some prey. As already mentioned, the light was perfect that day. The biggest challenge was finding a spot with an unobstructed view. The bird moved several times between different trees at the edge of the woods. It finally tried to hunt down a woodpecker but had to leave hungry this time.

SHARPIE’S STRIKE

Sharp-shinned Hawk after making a kill

A short glimpse outside the window this late afternoon told me that a raptor was around because all the birds were gone. Well, wait a minute, except for one! It was our Sharp-shinned Hawk who got a hold of a woodpecker. There wasn’t much left of the bird and I’m still not 100% sure if the hawk caught a Downy or one of the larger Hairy Woodpeckers. The size of some feathers make me believe it was the latter.

I grabbed the camera quickly and opened the window silently. The picture is cropped to about DX size because I had to shoot through the legs of a bird bath installation in the front yard. The Sharp-shinned Hawk ate pretty fast but lifted its head from time to time.

The key for a sharp shot was predicting when the head is up and at a total standstill, called “peak of action”. The ability to shoot up to 14 frames per second with the Nikon Z6II helps to nail this moment even with just a short shutter burst.

Of course, we like all birds we are fortuned to see here above the Little Maquoketa Valley. It’s sad to see a woodpecker go, but we also know birds of prey, as the Sharp-shinned Hawk, play an important ecological role in maintaining the environmental health of their natural habitat. As apex predators they remove sick, old, and weak animals from prey population and keep prey species and mesopredator populations under control.

NATURE CLICKS #538 - SHARP-SHINNED HAWK

Sharp-shinned Hawk, Little Maquoketa River Valley, Iowa

Life isn’t always easy for the birds that come to our feeders and heated water bowls near the house. Yes, they have food and water but it also attracts predators, like this Sharp-shinned Hawk. When most of the birds suddenly hide in panic in nearby bushes and the woodpeckers freeze motionless on a tree trunk, it is a sure sign that a hawk is somewhere in the trees or is gliding through the woods.

Today the sound of a little bird hitting a window made me aware that something was going on outside. The hawk was perched just above some of the bird feeders. I believe it is a female “Sharpie”. The bird was fifteen minutes in that tree and gave me plenty of time to change the lens on my camera, open the window, and start shooting before she took off. Who knows, this might be my last “Nature clicks” blog post for 2022, but nature is always full of surprises and we have still seven days left this year…

A SUCCESSFUL HUNTER

Sharp-shinned Hawk

There was some turmoil in the air but let me start with the story before the drama unfolded this morning. Part of my morning routine is to check on bird feeders, water levels of the heated bird baths, and just watch the actions of our feathered friends from behind the balcony door. As seen other times before, there was a moment this morning when every bird either went away or just froze any movement. All the woodpeckers and nuthatches stopped moving and looked like sculptures and no sparrow, junco, finch, titmouse, or cardinal was really visible. This is a sure sign that our Sharp-shinned Hawk is in a nearby tree and on the hunt. I looked into the woods behind the house for ten minutes but couldn’t see the raptor. I just knew the hawk was there. Suddenly hell broke loose and some of the 25-30 Northern Cardinals that were hiding between tree branches panicked and among them was the hawk. He caught one of them mid-air and dropped immediately to the ground. And this was where both photos were made. You can’t see the poor cardinal under the snow but you get a picture of a successful hunter. The hawk spent a few minutes sitting over its prey before it took off and flew into a grove of eastern cedars and out of sight.

Sharp-shinned Hawks are pursuit hunters and catch their prey, mostly small birds, often by surprise, either mid-air or on the ground. They can navigate dense woods at high speeds and are agile and acrobatic fliers.

I was lucky to find an unobstructed view between the trees and the hawk gave me enough time to calm down and handhold camera and long lens while shooting from the balcony deck.