Accipiters

By Rosemary Conroy on Friday, April 8, 2005.

listen:

These majestic year-round residents have to eat too, don't they? So don't be surprised when you find them hanging around your birdfeeder...waiting to eat the birds.

Welcome to this week?s edition of Something Wild. I?m Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

It?s easy to get excited about the migrants that are winging their way north right now. We shouldn?t overlook, however, the birds who make a living here year-round.

One of the more fascinating ? and often maligned ? birds are the hawks known as ?accipiters.? These woodland dwellers get their bad reputations because they often prey on songbirds that visit feeders. And as anyone who puts out sunflower seeds and suet knows, you start to think of those goldfinches, nuthatches and woodpeckers as ?your? birds.

Which is probably why it?s so upsetting when an accipiter picks off a cute little chickadee. But like every creature, that hawk needs to eat too. And you have to admit, if you ate birds and were hungry ? you?d go where they tend to be: In other words, your bird feeders.

Sharp-shinned hawks are the smallest of these long-tailed, round-winged predators. No bigger than a blue jay, it can camouflage itself quite well. Most people don?t even know it?s been lurking in the tree until all its prey scatter or freeze. It?s well designed to give chase through a forest, just like all its fellow accipiters.

Around here, these include the Cooper?s hawk, which is about the size of a crow. It preys on larger birds like robins and jays. Next comes the majestic Goshawk, that, while smaller than an eagle is still quite large. I had one checking out my chickens this winter, to give you an idea of what it thinks makes a good supper.

Like all predators, accipiters help keep the health of its prey population strong by culling its weakest members.

Logical, of course, but still hard to take when ?your? chickadee has just been carried off in pair of razor-sharp talons. But don?t think of it as being killed, instead, it?s simply been transformed ? into a hawk.

Something Wild is a joint production of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, NHPR, and New Hampshire Audubon.

For Something Wild, I?m Rosemary Conroy.