Why the hawk brought leaves instead of food to the nest

Yesterday, when the food service to the nest was still getting up to speed, we noticed greenery arriving instead of a mouse or pigeon. Was the greenery some kind of camouflage for the baby eyasses?

John Blakeman gives us this fascinating insight into the mindsets of the parent hawks:

"No, the leaves brought to the nest were not intended as camouflage. Clearly, they didn't obscure our view of the tiny eyasses, and neither would they have done that for any passing nest raider, such as a crow.

But we shouldn't presume that the eyasses were unprotected in the parents' absence. Very much the opposite. Although the formel stepped away for an interval, be assured that she was in full view of the nest and had her eyes on all activity in the nest region. Had a crow or any other bird started to fly anywhere near the nest, she would have responded instantly and powerfully.

And the tiercel, too, during his long, all-afternoon absence, was almost surely in direct eye contact with the nest, or at least the general nest territory, where he could quickly go in and push away any intruders. We are getting to watch but a square meter of the nest surface, while both of the haggards are surveying the entire airspace of this part of Philadelphia.

As I watched the formel sitting on the nest yesterday, eagerly awaiting some food (for her eyasses, not for her -- she can easily and comfortably go two or three days without food), I noticed her visual attentiveness. As a falconer who has watched my red-tails hunt right from my fist, I'm aware of the hawk's slight nuances of increased interest in the landscape in front of her. The formel was keenly aware of and watching everything around her nest yesterday.

Why did the tiercel bring some leaves, instead of some food, to the nest? Doesn't make sense, does it? But in fact, these birds are not acting on "good sense" or rational thinking in any human manner. Their brains don't work that way. They can't. The hawk brain is rather small, and utterly incapable of the deliberate (but simple) thoughts that went through our heads yesterday as we anxiously awaited food all afternoon for the now-hungry (but still safe) little eyasses.

Red-tails are mostly eye ball, not brain. Their eyes are almost as big as a human eye, taking up at least two-thirds of the cranial space. The brain is only a small organ at the back of the head. The rest of it is a pair of powerful telescopic eyes. Consequently, the behaviors of the hawks are almost always -- with one exception I'll mention -- very "ritualistic." They almost clumsily "go through the motions" to do things like feeding the eyasses.

When you watch the formel feed the eyasses, she always gets the job done, but in fits and starts and awkward and inconsistent motions. Let's face it. She's a bird brain. She (and her tiercel) can't think very clearly and can't act very deliberately. They ritualistically go through the motions when incubating, rolling the eggs, and feeding and protecting the eyasses.

That's why the leaves were brought to the nest. It was "something do do." In human terms (more so than I, as a male would like to admit), the tiercel, meagerly, was thinking, "Hey, the formel's really got something going there on the nest. I'd better DO something. Now just what can I do? Hey, I'll bring her a beak-full of leaves. She liked that a month ago. That oughta do it!"

We males are, by and large, mentally disadvantaged in figuring out the feminine mind and its enigmatic perspectives. It's the same with the tiercel. He's still scratching his head trying to figure out what to do now. "Oh, I'd better bring a bunch of food over to the nest, I think."

But there is one area of thinking where the red-tail and all hawks excel. Here, I'll mention it only briefly. It should be a chapter or two in my book on red-tails that I will be writing.

Red-tails are simply brilliant hunters, spending hours each day observing prey and calculating how to efficiently and successfully capture, kill and retrieve food. Nothing haphazard or random or ritualistic with this. It is with great cunning the tiercel has learned to capture energy-dense city pigeons, birds that could easily and otherwise escape a slower, bulky red-tailed hawk.

And that's why I so much would like to see postings on exactly how urban red-tails capture pigeons. Clearly, they do it with calculated cunning and directed ambush. Smart birds, them -- in this unique regard."

--John Blakeman