Friday, June 18, 2010

John Blakeman on how hawks hunt and kill

John Blakeman, master falconer and raptor biologist from Ohio, has been so generous with his expert knowledge for the Hawkwatch blog. He has provided us with a master class in red-tail hawk behavior at every step in the progress of the Franklin Institute eyasses and their parent haggards, and recognizes the unique nature of the Franklin Institute nest

Here is his latest commentary on how hawks locate, catch and kill their prey, illustrated with some of Kay Meng's images from last year and this of the Franklin Institute haggards.


"Those fortunate enough to intimately watch the activities of haggards and eyasses at red-tailed hawk nests such as at The Franklin Institute see much that others never get to experience. I thank the Institute for allowing all of us to be so keenly entranced with this remarkable spectacle.

I’ve been studying red-tailed hawks across the entire continent, from Alaska to Maine for 40 years, focusing primarily on the birds in my native northern Ohio. I’ve watched dozens of nests, and except for a few in northern Nevada, where I could look down into the cliff-ledge nests from above, I’ve never been able to see all that I’ve seen now for two years at The Franklin Institute. My great thanks!

But there is one facet of red-tail life that has not been observed at The Institute nest. It’s extremely important, and to understand this regal bird, this facet of its life should be understood and pondered. I believe I know it better than most raptor biologists because I’m a master falconer, and I hunt with red-tailed hawks, so I get to see what I’m about to describe first hand – up close and personal.



The topic is how the hawks find, capture, kill, and eat their food. It’s not like a pigeon finding grain or seeds, or a robin pulling a worm from the soil. It’s far more complex and interesting; if not gory and startling. This may not be for the squeamish. We are dealing with a predator, a species whose life depends upon the slaying of other lives. A very serious matter, both ecologically and morally.

A more exhaustive deliberation on these topics should be the themes of several chapters in an intended book on red-tailed hawks. But in the shared joy of The Franklin Institute fledglings, I’ll focus on what these young birds must learn in the next six weeks or so—how to hunt and kill, efficiently and frequently. Should these skills fail, the now-healthy eyasses will starve and die this summer, a fate that awaits the majority of fledged red-tail eyasses. This is a serious matter, much more so than merely learning to fly and land.

First, let me summarize the hunting and killing skills and protocols of the haggards. They are profound killing machines, resulting once again in the production of three fledged eyasses, which are a result of the haggards’ applied hunting and killing skills. Our three eyasses never once went to sleep hungry. They grew and thrived on ample and diverse food brought to them by the haggards, but mostly by the tiercel. He was a father supreme, in every respect, the Great Provider for both his young eyasses and his incubating and eyass-tending formel. Let’s start with just how the tiercel was so able to provide food for his large family.


To capture prey, the hawk must first spot it, using its telescopic eyesight. That’s pretty obvious. But a more subtle, but even more crucial factor must first come into play. The hawk can’t spot prey animals that aren’t there. The first big factor is for the hawk to Be There. Where? Where prey are likely to be seen.


Our vaunted tiercel did not spend the winter and spring wandering randomly around his portion of Philadelphia. Quite the opposite. His flying traverses above the Parkway trees and buildings were anything but random. When we see a red-tail regally coursing overhead, we have no idea what he’s thinking, or where he’s going. To us, he’s just flying around up there. Looks pretty relaxed and casual to us, something we’d all like to be able to do.

Many a time I’ve imagined myself as a red-tail floating on set wings above my rural landscape. What wonderful views I could have, how much fun it would be to set my wings against the winds and get caught up in a warm thermal draft over a nearby soybean field. In just a few minutes, without a single wing beat, I’d be at 3000 feet, peering down telescopically at everything below. I feel sorry for those who have never watched a red-tail do all of this, as they’ve never personally entertained such dreams of emulating the hawk’s soaring flight. All of us need to engage in such fantasies from time to time. They allow is to connect so personally with these regal birds.
So, no - red-tails circling high above, or flying just above the trees in a straight line, are not randomly wandering. Each of their movements are somewhat deliberate, performed within a guiding mental framework of experience and desire.


When red-tails are soaring, they are never hunting. They soar because they and their eyasses are fed and sated. Although it’s unacceptably anthropomorphic to say this, I actually believe that red-tails just love to soar and circle as we would ourselves, were we given such powers. Hanging up there so effortlessly and wheeling so balletically must be pleasurable to these birds. They are content, secure, and hopeful in these elevated flights, if not downright ecstatic.

But red-tails, and all other hawks, are visual creatures, seeing things that few other animals can or do. They are able to see broad, but detailed, wide-angle fields of view just as we do—and very few animals can do this. We have a giant portion of our brain, the occipital lobe at the back of the cranium, dedicated to the interpretation of the massive signals coming into the brain from our dense light-sensing cells on the retina. Many animals are almost blind, lacking the ability to make sense of all the photos impinging on the retinal surface. Their brains focus only on a few, central details. We humans see better than most other animals.

And so do red-tails. They see the broad, wide landscape, perhaps almost as well as we do, although their brains are minute compared to ours. (That’s a problem for comparative anatomy and physiology, which I’m not competent to expound upon.) But here’s where red-tails and other similar hawks differ from us. As the hawk scans the sky and landscape, its brain instantly recognizes what’s most important - the distant appearance of a prey animal. A soaring peregrine falcon can spot a distant prey bird, perhaps a pigeon or duck, from thousands of meters away. A red-tail’s eyesight is just as good as a peregrine’s, but it’s searching for food it prefers, primarily prey on the ground, mice, rats, and squirrels. (Pigeons are an entirely other matter, which I’ll address later.)


As our tiercel flew all around The Franklin Institute last year, it was always searching for food to capture, kill, and eat. Here’s the important consideration of all of this apparently random flying around. First, again, it’s not so random. There is a daily pattern to red-tail flights. That’s why it would have been so fine to get a radio beeper (transmitter) on either of the haggards so their whereabouts 24/7 could have been plotted. When this is done (I’ve done it only by diligent visual plotting using a binoculars and a car, tagging behind a red-tail’s daily flights in my flat Ohio row-crop landscapes), red-tails are found to have a somewhat narrow schedule of daily activities, among which is a lot of flying from frequent perch to frequent perch.

Red-tails usually spend much more time perched than flying. To the unknowing, they are regarded as lazy sit-abouts failing to attend to important matters—living as many of us do too often (or wish we could, as on vacation). Not so, however. Get your binoculars on a sitting red-tail and look closely at what he’s doing with his head. Except when preening (usually in the morning—another topic altogether), he’s moving his eyes in every direction. He may have his foot propped up and appears to be at utter ease. Physically, he is. But mentally, he’s taking in everything he can see, focusing for an instant to the left, then to the right, then down below, then behind, then back in front. All the while, he’s watching for two things; first, the presence of any intruding red-tail or other hawk or unwelcome bird or animal. But more importantly, he’s looking for any prey animals, any animal in his giant field of vision that could become his next meal. His brain is exquisitely programmed to instantly zoom in on and focus on any potential prey animal that appears in his field of vision.


And every time he sees any such animal, even if it’s a fractional glimpse of a rat’s tail, a split-second leap of a one-ounce vole between two distant grass clumps, even the hop of a grasshopper one hundred yards away, he sees and records the image in his brain. His existence depends on these innate skills. He must quickly learn and remember where prey can be seen.
So as our Parkway red-tails have flow around their Philadelphia neighborhood in the last year, in all seasons and weather conditions, they have been diligently recording just where they’ve seen potential prey. That’s where they are going to go when they want to hunt, when they or their eyasses are hungry. They have learned to cogently read the entire landscape the occupy, and know exactly where the next meal’s most likely to be found.

That’s the first, and in fact, most important part of this story. The hawk has to put himself where he has the highest chance of winning, of seeing and capturing a prey animal. He’s got to get the odds in his favor. He, as the eyassses will in the coming weeks, learned that car parking lots, for example, just never have any huntable prey. Don’t waste time sitting on a utility pole looking down amongst all those iron heaps for a warm, juicy fresh meal. Wrong place. Fly over to where prey were frequently seen and caught, to happy hunting grounds, as it were.

Fortunately, there are apparently lots of good hunting areas for our red-tails on the Parkway. The newly-fledged eyasses will now have to learn those lessons themselves, using their still-weak flight powers, powerful eyes, and developing mental abilities.

This is getting a bit long here, so I’ll return later with more of this big story, how red-tail hawks hunt and kill."

-- John Blakeman

35 comments:

  1. Thank You, I eagerly await the next installment!

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    1. There will be no installation and this does not help anybody

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  2. Amazing creatures.
    Thank you for the education. Looking forward to more.

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  3. I just love learning all of this! Can't wait for part II.

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  4. Thank you John. I love learning all about these beautiful hawks. I look forward to part 2.

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  5. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. I almost daily see one of these same hawks out my apartment window as it scopes out the Schuylkill River Trail for rabbits and mice, then crosses the river to flush out the resident flock of pigeons near the 30th street train station, probably looking for a slow or injured or particularly juicy bird. Then it catches updrafts from the Cira Center, lofts high up and disappears over University City. It's a delight to watch, and has become part of my daily ritual too. Eagerly waiting for your next installment!

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  6. Thanks so much for this information.
    I am particularly fascinated by the wild life that live beside us in the city and the details of their lives.
    Just one city park houses an overabundance of dramatic
    activity.

    Looking forward to your next installment.

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  7. Very helpful. I've been walking my 3.8 Chihuahua on the same route for a couple of months. We've had two thwarted hawk attacks, one this morning. I will definitely take her on other routes. One thing puzzles me however, my dog is never more than two feet away from me; I don't understand why a large and moving object next to the tiny one isn't a deterrent to the hawk. Curious. Thanks for the information.

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  8. Thanks for the knowledge, but you are to into your self,to get your point across without yawning was hard, but after six or so paragraphs I got what your ego blocked out so you could give a hawk history lesson you freak.... oh and hawk maniac, thanks.

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    1. So jealous! What did you do to educate, or make the world a better place today? Nothing.

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  9. Thanks for the information, but I didn't need you're history on prey birds one paragraph would have done better

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    1. Thanks for your comment, but if you said nothing, you would have “done better.”

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    2. And it’s “your” by the way. Take a remedial English class before criticizing others, for starters.

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  10. Wish you would stay more on the subject. It took all this just to tell us that hawks are perch hunters. You talk to much about bs. Try to just give more facts and less about humans wishing they could fly.

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    1. So many jealous people! What did you create today, to educate or make the world a better place? Nothing. Work on pulling the log out of your own eye.

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  11. Chris Murphy and Anonymous - what's with the rudeness and hostility?

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  12. Hi!
    I am an author writing about a character who was partially transformed into a red-tailed hawk by a wizard. He got raptor vision and the ability to fly, but I also wanted to add in "hawk instincts" that might hinder him or otherwise cement the fact that he is no longer fully human. (That way, he's not like a superhero with hawk powers or anything like that.)
    I found this blog while researching and this article was very helpful! Thank you for writing it!

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  13. are both hawks active w/feeding & protecting the hatchlings?
    When I log on I have seen only 1 hawk

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  14. thx for the show---my opinion, next time place the camera higher up & directed into the nest to actually view the eggs, hatchlings, fledglings as they eat & grow

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  15. if interested, here is a link to a single hatched eagle located outside davenport, iowa. the eaglet is getting ready to fledge.
    http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp

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  16. Lost a cat to a bird attack. Doubtful I'll win favor but I'm looking to take out what got my cat next to the clumps of ripped fur tufts of soft cotton like feather. I'm thinking owl or hawk as a vulture won't die for a meal but eat that which was easyly found. Thought about baiting but I don't know if such a bird to kill a full grown cat will take the bait. Don't judge me harshly you see beauty I feel loss you are inspired an I feel cheated. From Michigan what ever got him ate all but the hip bone an spine. It was a bird cause of under feathers an a few outer. How ever if it at least offered my cat a quick death. My friend my favored exhistance I'll consider allowing it to live. But if this type of bird took bites an toyed with him I'll stick a live mouse on a bear trap an rip his feathers from his skin like the torn fur from my cat.

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    1. If you lost a cat to a hawk that was your own fault, because you were an incompetent cat owner. Next time keep your cat indoors. Funny you are angry at a hawk instead of yourself.

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    2. Cats are the creatures which toy with prey, torturing and then killing it, often without even eating it.

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  17. Steve Starr I live in the desert 40 miles west of Phoenix AZ and had 2 chickens, 1 was a miniature serama rooster that I had for 4 years or more and the other a big white hen, both lived in a big pen that they roosted in every night. I left the door open so they could come and go as they pleased in the day to go in and out to eat their food and drink water and at night they would always return and go back inside to roost. Then on 9/17/15 a hawk took my rooster, it was in the morning I had just looked out the window and seen them both together in my back yard I turned my head for a minute then heard the hen squawking real loud looked out and my little rooster was gone, I started looking everywhere all around as fast as I could, finally I found what was left of him about 15 minutes later just his 2 little feet and some feather's then the next morning on 9/18/15 came the mystery that I'm looking for an answer to. I looked for my big white hen and couldn't find her so I started searching the desert south of my place close to where I found what was left of my rooster and noticed a bunch of white feathers and immediately knew that she had been killed by the same hawk, there was a bunch of white feathers her wings an egg and a small undeveloped egg but no feet like like I found from my rooster the day before so I started a larger search to find the the rest of her. I finally found what was left of her at the bottom of a grease wood bush with the help of my little dog. The strange thing about it I would have never found what was left of her if it hadn't been for my dog, I couldn't see any feathers I just noticed him sniffing at the bottom of the bush when I looked closer I seen what looked like a couple white feathers buried under the dirt at the base of the bush in a little hole. When I pulled on a feather the rest of what was left of her came out with her legs and both feet 1 wing and most of her skin with white feathers, It was really strange I'm a 55 year old AZ native who's lived in the desert most of my life and I've never heard of or seen a hawk bury what was left of their prey but that's what had to have done it because I couldn't see any coyote fox cat or dog tracks, I've lived out here long enough to know the difference but it's still hard to imagine a hawk using his claws or beak to dig a little hole and then neatly cover it back up, what was amazing is how it neatly packed what was left of that hen into such a small hole especially because of the large amount left of the hen, when I pulled on the feather I didn't expect to find most of what was left of her in a hole that small. It will always be a mystery to me whether or not it was a hawk or a fox but I'm 95% sure it was a hawk that did it because a fox coyote cat or dog would have hauled it off a lot further or ate the whole chicken as where a hawk couldn't eat a chicken that big at one time. Not only that there were no tracks, I would appreciate any comments from anyone that has seen or knows for sure whether or not bird's of prey such as hawks bury what's left of prey they can't finish at one time.

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    1. I've never known one to bury leftover prey, but I once observed a Red-Tail that partially ate a cotton-tail rabbit, then flew up to a tree and left the remaining carcass hanging on a branch.

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    2. I have had my chickens disappearing for the last few weeks, today I walked under our local red tail hawk nest and found a half eaten chicken partially buried with pine needles right under their nest. Also found a a dead young coyote pup under the nest. I have pictures to back it up

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  18. Great post full of useful tips! My site is fairly new and I am also having a hard time getting my readers to leave comments. Analytics shows they are coming to the site but I have a feeling “nobody wants to be first”.
    snow removal davenport ia

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  19. This is the best Google blog I've seen.

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  20. Do Redtails dig in dirt (my mulch covered garden) after moles or voles

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  21. عندما تفكر في قضاء إجازتك في منزلك بعيدا عن الضوضاء و زحام المدن ، فإن أول ما تحب عينيك رؤيته هو نظافة حمام السباحة
    شركة صيانة مسابح بالدمام لاعمال صيانة واصلاح المسابح حيث فريق عمل مميز وعلى درجة عالية من الجاهزية لحل مشكلات المسابح والنوافير
    شركة صيانة مسابح بالخبر تقدم خدمات تنظيف وتعقيم المسابح جدران وارضيات بالاضافة الي خدمات صيانة المسابح وتغيير رمل الفلير شركة كشف تسربات المياه شرق الرياض

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  22. Studying and Understanding the Predator Behavior of Eagles in Hunt for Food

    Owner of the Hawkwatch blog, John Blackman a raptor expert from Ohio shares a lot of good insight to the predator red-tail hawk, and how it hunts, captures and eats their prey.
    These hawks are quite smart, they have strong instincts, and never would allow themselves and their family to go hungry.
    As they look for their prey, they use their telescopic eyesight from above, they are also smart to know where their prey may be, from season to season, they have a good instinct of where to go to be able to get a good prey. Behavior of the hawk is also very obvious, when they spread their wings, it means that they are not looking for prey, this is an indication that they are already satiated and full. However, when they look piercing, and glide through the air, it is a sign that they are on the search for food. They, also do not spend a lot of time flying, they conserve their energy by staying perched most of the time.

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  23. Great article!
    Thank you for sharing this valuable information!
    Kay Meng's images collections is great



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