Amazing things happen in nature, as any viewer of the Discovery channel can attest. I am not personally a viewer of that channel, but have seen clips of lions chasing down antelopes and such from time to time. Today, I had my own such nature experience, right here in the local park where I walk my dogs. Heading down a path, I saw Mike, the Hawk Watch guy who lives nearby, staring through binoculars. Assuming he was looking at an interesting bird, I stopped and asked and he pointed out a scene to me that I could see without binoculars.
A large female Cooper’s hawk (the females are much larger, he noted) was in a low tree, trying to get at a small roadrunner hiding under an adjacent tree, a small mesquite. The hawk would dart down, to the ground near the tree, and the roadrunner would dart on the ground (they don’t fly) to the other side. The hawk apparently couldn’t get down on the ground under this tree, but was relentless (focused on its prey like a hawk!) and kept the roadrunner trapped there. It was something I had never seen before, and would not have seen this time but for Mike.
We watched it for about 10 minutes, and it was a standoff, and then they were both gone. Not clear if the roadrunner successfully got away or if the contest had just moved farther off. Pretty sure that the hawk did not get it, at least at that time, or we would have heard the ruckus. I hope the roadrunner got away; they are amazing birds. I was so focused on watching, I neglected to take a photo (I could have gotten one of the hawk on the tree watching like a hawk, but the roadrunner would not have been visible on the ground). I’ll post stock photos of them, not scaled for comparable size.
Thank you, Mike, for sharing this experience!
(BTW, contrary to what we learned from cartoons, coyotes are faster than roadrunners. The roadrunner would have had no chance with the hawk on open ground. Cooper’s hawks can not only fly 50+ mph, but they are incredibly agile and can fly almost that fast through forests, dodging trees left and right and up and down!)
Below is another stock photo of what might have happened:
Addendum: I did not get pix that day, but this morning there was a roadrunner standing right near me off the pass. Easy pix! So I snapped a few. Even though it is impossible in the sun to see what the camera is photographing, it was right there, so how could I miss? I did. No pix from today to post.
