Hawklet learned how to hunt and scored

[27hand]

I put this in the hunting forum even though it was not me hunting.

There are a few video links between the pics and take a bit to load.

This whole thread was based on the what made you smile thread because watching these hawks makes me smile whenever I get to see them.


Around April, I saw some activity at the old Red Tailed hawks nest about 75 yards from the house.
I set up one of my spotting scopes and watched the renovation / remodeling of the nest thats been there a few years now.

I believe Mr Redtail got lucky and soon we watched both him and Mrs RedTail sitting on the nest thru some crappy weather.

Eventually, we saw little grey heads popping up and knew we had 3 new hawklets hatched into this world.

Here is a vid of him or her feeding at least one youngster.

https://flic.kr/p/2kn33oP


after some time, we did see 2 and then 3 little heads pop up
https://flic.kr/p/2iVpcuT

20200428_184745 by poofy27, on Flickr

quite a few pics and vids later, the leaves came out and blocked our view.

Fast forward to the 27hand hunting grounds and me sitting 20 feet above the ground hoping to shoot a deer. I was going to let one of the deer I had tied up loose so I could shoot it under the pretense of hunting when I saw a hawk swoop down and try for a chipmunk. That was about 30 yards out and the youngster missed but flew up into a tree another 10 yards and try again resulting in a second miss.

It was cool to watch and brought a smile to my face even with the miss.

Forward again to a few days ago. I'm sitting having a cup after filling the birdfeeders and BLAM, 2 birds hit the window REALLY hard.
I get up to see if one was dead on the deck after that hit.

Little dude got one. A mourning dove and the others were mourning too.


Proud momma or poppa watching
https://flic.kr/p/2kn2hwV

2020-12-27_09-45-22 by poofy27, on Flickr

https://flic.kr/p/2km5Uzg

2020-12-27_09-45-03 by poofy27, on Flickr


Now, 3 of my 4 cats were REALLY interested while watching everything happening.
The Hawklet could not lift the dove to fly away.
I believe the momma or poppa didn't want to come for the kill so unfortunately, they left me the feather explosion and carcas


Cool beans

[Gunplummer]

Seems a lot of doves don't migrate anymore. When I was a kid I went out one brutally cold morning to check my fox traps. I cut through a strip of pines and there were about a dozen doves on the ground dead that froze off their perch.