To compliment my own observations, here are a few facts about an animal that can make even the busiest person take a moment to look up, and observe, when they happen to notice one flying overhead with red tail aglow. With a loud, surprised squawk, and two hawks swarming it, the heron beat a hasty retreat and probably found a new spot to forage in the future. The heron likely posed no threat to the young hawks, but the parents had no way of knowing this and responded with a ferocity equal to the months of time and energy that they had invested in their offspring. The not needing contrived drama that I alluded to earlier was made apparent when a hapless great blue heron that was likely foraging in a nearby creek happened to fly past the hawk nest, which contained nestlings. Sometimes this is clearly too long, or the hawks just want a moment away from parental duties since it can happen that if the weather is warm enough, the nest will be left alone, and the two parents can be seen soaring overhead. Often the shift ends when the hawk who is not incubating decides to return to the nest. The length of time as incubator varies widely and is typically between one and three hours but sometimes much less or much longer. When it is time for the parents to switch the role of incubator, there is usually a brief moment when the two hawks move close to one another and seem to exchange some subtle form of communication about their time with the eggs, before the hawk whose shift is up flies off, and the other hawk takes its place as incubator. For instance, male and female hawks share the duties of raising their young, from incubating the eggs to feeding the nestlings the hawks are a sublime example of egalitarianism in parenting. Hawks display behavior that many people might find surprising. The details of this were made obvious to me this spring when I was assigned the task of monitoring an active red-tailed hawk nest and recording the behavior of its inhabitants with the goal of ensuring that nearby construction activity did not force the hawks to abandon the nest, something that can happen if they experience novel disturbances. It’s a bit like being able to watch a reality show that is focused on the struggle for life with none of the drama increasing edits needed. By being able to see an animal at all times, its entire life is made observable.
Nesting birds are a conspicuous counterpoint to this fact.
Very few animals spend a large portion of their time in view of an interested observer.
The ability to observe animals at leisure is not common in nature.
0 kommentar(er)
