Murderer identified
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 27-10-2011
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Killings have resumed in our back yard this summer. I think I may have mentioned it and also mentioned that I thought it was a feral cat. Well, maybe I missed. Today, no. 2 son was visiting and surprised a hawk with a Roadrunner in his talons trying to take to the air with his prey. For whatever reason, after reaching a height of 3 feet or so, he dropped the Roadrunner. The Roadrunner hung around our yard trying of shake off his injury but it must have been too damaging to shake off. The hawk stayed close, first on the neighbors mailbox, then later in the front yard pine tree. No. 2 son tossed a rock into the limb he was resting on and scared him off. Only thing when the hawk flew off the Roadrunner did what it is famous for and that is run, but mighty shaky. No. 2 said it had a hole in its side and he did not think he would run very far. I asked my son to help identify the would be murderer by going through my bird book. He did…The Red Tail Hawk, Eastern version, a year round resident of New Mexico statewide. I had thought I had seen one flying by in the past few weeks…Now I know…There were feathers every where when we had a murder and I wondered about not seeing bones, figuring I would see them if it was a hawk….I guess he flies off with everything except feathers…There are feathers all over our front yard today…I guess he really tore the Roadrunner up..Now before you get to feeling to sorry for that dang old Roadrunner, he is the one that would get up in the pine trees around my house and rob the eggs from the nest or kill the young that was in the nest. I personally witnessed him being mean to the other birds. Nesting birds, dove, robins and sparrows, would go crazy when the Roadrunner was around…More sayings for “as the old saying goes”….”What goes around, comes around” and “when you make your bed you have to lie in it” and “do it to others before they do it to you”, well, something near that…Thanks No. 2 for helping to clear up the mystery of the killings going on in our yard….
I’m not worried about the hawk. Hawks only do what the Lord created them to do, that is, keep the world from becoming overpopulated with those species on which they prey. I am not particularly worried about the roadrunner because, the way those guys can run, I figure that they have a fair chance of getting away from any hawk, though a few are unlucky as this one must have been.
It must be different in the areas near the river where you live because I just don’t remember seeing very many of any kind of birds in the southeastern heights and the Kirtland AFB/Monzano area except for occassional roadrunners. I had to go into the Monzanos and east of the Sandias and into the moutains around Santa Fe and Glorieta to see very many of what i call normal birds. It must be different down around the Rio Grande. I do remember seeing some down there too, but it was different. The west side of the river was fairly undeveloped and empty, and the east side consisted mostly of parks, the zoo, and housing developments. This young, immature trooper from Alabama simply figured that all this stuff was the artificial work of man. It was nice, but it still wasn’t home.
Yeah, they were both doing what the Lord designed them for. We just feed feed and water neighborhood birds and are protective of them I guess. But, that is the way of the wild….