Wild things

[Ridge Wolf]

I got to travel to the Northwest quite a bit with my job (Seattle area) and I was just in awe of the eagles out there. They seemed to be just about everywhere. When we were in AK they WERE everywhere. I don't get to see beauty like that nearly as often as I'd like so it was really appreciated and I looked forward to it with each trip.

And to think there were those that wanted to make the wild turkey our National Emblem.

Those birds are BIG!! I got lucky one day and happened to drive up on one that was feeding off a deer carcass on the side of the road.. (road kill). Stopped and just admired the sight.. not more than the other side of the road from me. He flew off after about 2 minutes.. just me and him out there.. sadly, I didn't have my camera with me.

But, tomorrow or this weekend I'll walk down to the lake and watch a few of them up in the trees there..

[beerrunner13]

young eagles taste very good roasted.
you have to get them before they put on too many flying hours;
that makes them chewy.

a turkey would be right symbol for the present government anyway.

We have a winner in the *** clown of the month contest

[canid]

get it right, it's ***hat

[trax]

I'll get in trouble for this...

It seems to be on the oustside of the shoe rather than the inside.

Trouble for that? Hell no, that was....almost poetic, I LIKE IT, lol.

[Rick]

I doubt he even understood it.

[bulrush]

Grand Rapids is the 2nd largest city in Michigan, but we have lots of hawks of some kind all along the highways. They just seem to multiply. Do they look for rodents in the short grass on the edge of the highway?

[Rick]

bulrush - There are a number of different kinds of hawks throughout the Midwest. Broad-winged, Red Tailed, Cooper's and even Peregrines are making a come back. Their eyesight is 8 times more powerful than ours so they can see just about any movement from atop a pole. Fish, rodents, rabbits, squirrels, snakes and birds all contribute to a hawk's meal. They will both kill and scavenge so they are pretty good opportunists.

I have a mated pair of Cooper's Hawks that frequents my yard and I've seen two airborne kills in the last three years and well as several on the ground. They are incredibly efficient. Their food of choice around here seems to be doves.

[trax]

One of those Discovery/learning channel type shows years ago, they said that a bald eagle could see a mouse moving in a field from as high as 3 miles up. I don't how they figure stuff like that out, but they seemed pretty sure. I know that predators, air and land based, spot movement first, before color or shape.

[crashdive123]

Many rely on sense of smell.

[trax]

Many rely on sense of smell.

well, yeah, but not for seeing stuff. geez, picky....

[Rick]

When those hawks hit the doves in mid air it was just an explosion of feathers. I don't think either of the birds knew what hit them.

Here's one that is feasting on a dove in my back yard after an ice storm several years ago. If you don't see it, he's sitting on the branch in the middle of the picture.

[beerrunner13]

I had a mated pair of broad winged hawks right by my place at the farm one day one just dissapeared I think they mate for life so that was a bad thing and they were hell on the mourning doves and squirels in the grove.

We had a bald eagle that was in the same tree every day about the same time of day and one day he was just gone too. I have seen them chase the squirels through the trees and you would swear the tree was comeing down.

But my favorite was the Ospreys they were all over the woods around the lake , me and my wife would sit in the front yard or on the dock and watch the momma teaching her babies to fish. She rarely missed but the youngens would have us laughing with thier misses and splats into the water. A lot of folks think Florida is all beaches and Disney but we have some pretty remote areas and greats national and state forests.

[Rick]

The broad winged hawk is one of the few hawks that migrate. They can sometimes number in the thousands during migration. I'd love to see just one group (they call them kettles) during migration.

[beerrunner13]

I'm not sure they were broad winged now that I think about it the old timers called them marsh hawks, but they are awesome chaseing small critters through the woods. We used to have a lot of wild hogs come up in the grove , was kinda cool hunting with out leaveng the yard But once they started building between me and the river you rarely saw them lots of turkeys though.

[canid]

you ever get to see a bald eagle do that to large mallards you'll probably be well impressed. i've got an interesting story involving a child molester's ducks, an eagle and my cat in a tree.

[beerrunner13]

you ever get to see a bald eagle do that to large mallards you'll probably be well impressed. i've got an interesting story involving a child molester's ducks, an eagle and my cat in a tree.

Well go on....you can't leave an opening like that hanging

[Alpine_Sapper]

you ever get to see a bald eagle do that to large mallards you'll probably be well impressed. i've got an interesting story involving a child molester's ducks, an eagle and my cat in a tree.

Don't just leave us in supsense man! Spill it!

[canid]

yes i can.

so when i was growing up we lived next to a pond and a muskeg where i used to play as a child.

there was an elderly, child molesting man named **** who lived up the road with property on the pond. he had a fallen tree hanging out ino the water in the lee of a big shade willow. he had, over the years bought many mallards and introduced them to the pond but he had problems with predation by eagles, particularly of the young. they would swoop down just as the ducks where settling into the water by the shade of he tree and pluck the ones they wanted as they exploded from the water to flee/fly.

two years previously we had a litter of kittens. settling on keeping two, we had one die and the other never got around to the vet for his snippage. this cat, whom we named holmes, after the fictional detective my father as obsessed with got big. he just kept getting bigger. he got up towards 25lb. while growing up, and still playful, but loved chasing the ducks aswell. he never caught one, and didn't stir things up too bad, so ***** never complained too much. they almost seemed to play. eventualy the cat figured out that the young eagles you swoop right under the shade of the willow to get the ducks.

holmes had previously learned to ambush small birds fromabove, by pouncing from a tree limb while they where landing. he decided to try his luck over the water, on large pointy predatory bird one day while i was out chasin' newts in the pond. i saw the bird commin around for a dive so i watched, and just as the beast came under the tree, a grey ball of fluff met a dark mottled streak and became one of those cartoon balls of dust and commotion from which a fist or foot occasionaly emerges when they want to approximate a vicious fight. this lasted all of one second as they hit the water -confused- and parted ways. did the cay try i again? you bet.

[beerrunner13]

That was a Kodac moment

[canid]

i wish. that could have made national geographic

the cat was never fixed [by us], later ran away, was taken in by another family on douglas island, was left with the juneau humane sosciety, was brough back to us and then went feral.