Not something you often get to see.

Widerstand

Widerstand

Joined
Feb 23, 2010
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1,497
Ive spent years and years in the woods, growing up in the country...etc. My whole life never saw a falcon up close like this.

Yesterday day when myself and mingo_clambake were out walking around and after shooting some video we saw this falcon, eating what I think was a stellar blue jay.

Most of the time when I see these around the northwest they are up on a pole or a fence post scanning a field or something.

It was really neat to just stand there and watch him eat for a bit before he took off with his kill.

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For years in New York City, we used to follow a family of red-tails nesting on Fifth Avenue, just across from Central Park. They hunted in the Park.

There was a tree inside the Park by 79th Street and Fifth with a low, large horizontal branch, that they would bring their kills to pluck. The grass underneath it was a carpet of pigeon feathers. People would line up with cameras and film all this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Male
 
never seen one in the woods, but they brought in some to help control the pigeons downtown indy. i was sitting at a stop light watching one sitting on a telephone pole and it swooped down like 4 foot away from me and grabbed a mouse out of the grass. it sat there and ate it for a second then flew back up on the telephone poll and finished its kill off. it was definitely cool to see.
 
There was a falcon that hunts pigeons around my old work building and he took them halfway down the slope to the underground parkade to pluck them so the crows can't see or harass him. Sure annoyed the landlady as she is sweeping up feathers and throwing away carcasses a couple times a month at least.
very nice pic btw
 
I think that is a goshawk, or maybe a cooper's hawk. The times I have gotten close to them they are either eating, or defending their nest by dive bombing me.
 
Awesome pics! Thanks for posting. We have a lot of hawks in this area, but I have yet to get any shots like that.
 
killstrees said:
I think that is a goshawk, or maybe a cooper's hawk. The times I have gotten close to them they are either eating, or defending their nest by dive bombing me.
Click to expand...

Good call. It's a cooper's hawk. Looks like a male. Cooper's hawks and Goshawks are closely related members of the accipiter family. They are some seriously acrobatic fliers amid dense forest.

Awesome pictures!
 
Great photos!


If you changed the thread title to 'Falcon smokes a Jay' you might get more hits
 
nice! a couple of weeks back i was driving to a park to go hiking when i saw this bird (have no idea what it was) just swoop down and take a pigeon (i'm guessing here) in mid air and land in my lane just after i passed by. i look in my rearview mirror and some of the cars are swerving a little while the two were on the ground! i think it was riz_aaroni (another member here) was following me behind and saw the same thing.
 
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