Saturday, November 22, 2014

Wind and Rain and Rainbows

Friday was a very blustery wet day.
Not a very good day for bird watching because of the weather... 

...and because of this guy!

My Steller's Jays spent a great deal of the morning mobbing this Sharp-shinned Hawk and attempting to run him off. The hawk is about the same size as the jays, but they do respect his sharp beak and talons.

The jays would manage to drive him off a tree only to have him perch on another nearby. Then jays would then fly off in pursuit.

They were not particularly scared of the hawk, more just annoyed by his presence.

I counted a totalof 15 jays working together to rid the area of the hawk.

I think the hawk finally left only when he had grown tired of being constantly disturbed.

Here was my reward for a stormy day.
A rainbow!

5 comments:

Margaret said...

Oh, pretty rainbow! That's interesting that the Stellar's Jays worked to get the hawk to go away. I didn't know they did that sort of thing. Oh. I got all curious about squirrels and chipmunks and hibernation. Had to look it all up. Very interesting!

Barb said...

Isn't it amazing to see how the birds work together! Probably better than our government right now! A pretty rainbow.

Maggee said...

I have seen crows chasing away a hawk in my neighborhood twice lately! Tho it is a lot of noise, did not seem to deter the hawk any!

Pam in IL said...

It's so interesting that you can watch the Jays working to scare off the Hawk.

Melanie said...

That's too funny that they work together to get him to bugger off.
My hawks are long gone now. Not sure where they go in the fall but I haven't heard them in a long while. Hopefully they are back nesting here in the spring. :)