Fish hawk

“ The motions of the Fish Hawk in the air are graceful, and as majestic as those of the Eagle. It rises with ease to a great height by extensive circlings, performed apparently by mere inclinations of the wings and tail. It dives at times to some distance with the wings partially closed, and resumes its sailing, as if these plunges were made for amusement only. Its wings are extended at right angles to the body, and when thus flying it is easily distinguishable from all other Hawks by the eye of an observer accustomed to note the flight of birds. ”

“ A fish-hawk will make its nest upon the ground, or a hummock, a stump, a buoy, a chimney—upon anything near the water that offers an adequate platform; but its choice is the dead top of some lofty tree where the pathway for its wide wings is open and the vision range is free for miles around.
How dare the bird rear such a pile upon so slight and towering a support! How dare she defy the winds, which, loosened far out on the bay, come driving across the cowering, unresisting marsh! She is too bold sometimes. I have known more than one nest to fall in a wild May gale. ”

“ I have never observed a Fish Hawk chasing any other bird whatever. So pacific and timorous is it, that, rather than encounter a foe but little more powerful than itself, it abandons its prey to the White-headed Eagle, which, next to man, is its greatest enemy. It never forces its young from the nest, as some other Hawks do, but, on the contrary, 416 is seen to feed them even when they have begun to procure food for themselves. ”

“ He is, however, a magnificent bird, when seen with wings expanded, nearly eight feet from tip to tip—and a body three and a half feet in length—his snowy-white head and neck shining in the sun, and his large, hooked, yellow beak open as he espies, afar off, the fish-hawk emerging from the ocean with his struggling prey. Downward he pounces with rapid flight. The fish-hawk sees his enemy approaching, and attempts to escape ”

“ Yet I can find no instance on record where our Fish Hawk has been known to molest any other bird or land-animal, to feed on them, though their swiftness of flight, and their strength of wing and claws, would seem to render such attacks quite easy. On their arrival the Fish Hawks are said to combine, and to wage a determined war upon the White-headed Eagles, often succeeding by their numbers and courage in driving them temporarily from their haunts. But they never attack them singly. ”

“ There’s a noble disposition in a fish-hawk: they are industrious, work hard for a living, and maintain their families by their own labor; they won’t pick up a dead fish, or eel, or feed on a dead horse or cow, like an eagle or carrion crow, but will have a live fish, that they have taken fresh from the sea; they won’t be beholden to chance, nor anybody, for their living, but earn it, as every honest person should, in the sweat of their face. ”

“ Notwithstanding all these facts, a most erroneous idea prevails among our fishermen, and the farmers along our coasts, that the Fish Hawk's nest is the best scare-crow they can have in the vicinity of their houses or grounds. As these good people affirm, no Hawk will attempt to commit depredations on their poultry, so long as the Fish Hawk remains in the country. ”

“ The American Fish Hawk is a formidable, vigorous-winged, and well-known bird, which subsists altogether on the fishes that swarm in our bays rivers, and creeks. It is doubtless the most numerous of its genus in the United States, and besides lining our seacoast from Georgia to Canada, it penetrates far into the interior. ”

“ I have frequently heard it asserted that the Fish Hawk is sometimes drawn under the water and drowned, when it has attempted to seize a fish which is too strong for it, and that some of these birds have been found sticking by their talons to the back of Sturgeons and other large fishes. ”

“ The Fish Hawk differs from all birds of prey in another important particular, which is, that it never attempts to secure its prey in the air, although its rapidity of flight might induce an observer to suppose it perfectly able to do so. ”

“ The Fish Hawk seldom alights on the ground, and when it does so, walks with difficulty, and in an extremely awkward manner. The only occasions on which it is necessary for them to alight, are when they collect materials for the purpose of repairing their nest at the approach of autumn, or for building a new one, or repairing the old, in spring. ”

“ The flight of this bird is very different from that of the White-headed Eagle. The former encircles a greater space, whilst sailing keeps nearer to the land and the surface of the water, and when about to dive for fish falls in a spiral manner, as if with the intention of checking any retreating movement which its prey might attempt, darting upon it only when a few yards distant. The Fish-hawk often does the same. When rising with a fish, the Bird of Washington flies, to a considerable distance, forming, in its line of course, a very acute angle with the surface line of the water. ”

“ On the shore you will also find the fish-hawk, or osprey; a well-mannered bird he is said to be, who fishes diligently and attends strictly to his own business. The fish-hawk's nest will generally be at the top of a dead tree where no one may disturb or look into it, though, as the accompanying photograph shows, it is sometimes found on rocks near the ground. The young hawks have a way of their own of defending themselves from any climbing creature, and to investigators of the nest the results are disastrously disagreeable as well as laughable. ”

“ On the contrary, fish-hawks are more numerous than perhaps any other species of the hawk tribe. Twenty or thirty95 nests may be seen near each other in the same piece of woods, and as many as three hundred have been counted on one little island. The nests are built upon large trees—not always at the tops, as those of rooks, but often in forks within twenty feet of the ground. They are composed of large sticks, with stalks of corn, weeds, pieces of wet turf, and then lined plentifully with dry sea-grass, or any other grass that may be most convenient. ”

“ These are the signals for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, soon gains on the Fish Hawk: each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in the rencontres the most elegant and sublime aërial evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish ”

“ But when he saw a fine large fish near the top of the water he came down like a flash, struck his claws into the fish, and flew away to his mate in a tree upon the land.
Sometimes the eagle gets the fish hawk to do the work for him. Waiting on the branch of some tree upon the shore he sees the fish hawk flying about over the water looking for his prey. As soon as a fish has been caught and the hawk is coming ashore to eat it, the eagle frightens the hawk so as to make him drop his fish. ”

“ Then, with this tremendous impulse driving him, he shot down like lightning, caught the fish some twenty feet above the water, turned, and rose in a long, magnificent slant, with the tribute borne in his talons. He sailed away majestically to his watch-tower on old Sugar Loaf, to make his meal at leisure, while the ruffled hawk beat away rapidly down the river to try his luck in the lower lake.
Holding the fish firmly in the clutch of one great talon, the eagle tore it to pieces and swallowed it with savage haste. ”

“ The Fish Hawk may be said to be of a mild disposition. Not only do these birds live in perfect harmony together, but they even allow other birds of very different character to approach so near to them as to build their nests of the very materials of which the outer parts of their own are constructed. ”

“ Of these no fewer than 263 were obtained by the 'Fish Hawk' expedition, and thirty-three of them proved to be new species. All the genera and species are fully described, and very many figured; while forty-nine coloured plates are added, which alone are a revelation to those who have never seen the gorgeous hues of, say, the fishes of a coral-reef. These figures may be accepted as true in colouration, for most of them "were painted on board the 'Fish Hawk,' the fish being placed in an aquarium as soon as caught, and the life colors gotten before they had undergone any appreciable change." ”

“ At these seasons, it appears in flocks of eight or ten individuals, following the windings of our shores in loose bodies, advancing in easy sailings or flappings, crossing each other in their gyrations. During the period of their stay in the United States, many pairs are seen nestling, rearing their young, and seeking their food, within so short a distance of each other, that while following the margins of our eastern shores, a Fish Hawk or a nest belonging to the species, may be met with at every short interval. ”

“ The sparrow-hawk is rare at this time, and is only abundant occasionally during its migrations. The red-shouldered hawk is a handsome bird, with some very good traits, and is a common permanent resident. Unless hunted, these birds are not shy, and they remain mated throughout the year. Many a human pair might learn much from their affectionate and considerate treatment of each other. They do not trouble poultry-yards, and are fond of frogs, cray-fish, and even insects. Occasionally they will attack birds as large as a meadow-lark. ”

“ On page 31 the būq-k͟hura is described as an eagle always found on marshes and reed beds. It eats frogs, dead fish, etc., and occasionally a wounded duck.
[479] This should be done stealthily at the time the chicken is substituted, or after the hawk has been re-hooded; for the hawk must be induced to believe that it has eaten the quarry it captured. With a thoroughly-made hawk no great stealth need be observed. ”

“ The fishhawk is often found sitting upon a tree over a pond, or lake, or river. He is also found by the seaside.
4. He watches the fish as they swim in the water beneath him; then he darts down suddenly and catches one of them.
5. When he catches a fish in his sharp, rough claws, he carries it off to eat, and, as he flies away with it for his dinner, an eagle sometimes meets him.
6. The eagle flies at him fiercely with his sharp bill and claws, and compels the hawk to drop the fish.
7. Then the eagle catches the fish as it falls, before it reaches the ground, and carries it off. ”

“ It soars to a great height, always endeavoring to get above the bird it is pursuing in order to swoop down upon it from above. It soars in a series of arcs and against the wind, which helps it to rise as it does a kite. [Pg 44] The hawk does not attack its prey with its beak, as is generally supposed, but with its talons. After securing its prey by swooping on it and fastening its claws in its victim it gently descends to the ground.
The young hawk yet in the nest is called an eyas, one that can hop is a brancher, and a young hawk able to catch game is called a soar hawk. ”

“ All big hawks captured after they have begun to prey for themselves are now commonly called passage hawks, although the name, strictly speaking, may not be at all correct. Wild-caught is a more inclusive term; and it is often used in the case of sparrow-hawks, merlins, and hobbies, when casually caught by bird-catchers or gamekeepers, and not killed in the process. We have seen that passage hawk means properly a hawk caught during the period of her first migration southwards. ”

“ Between the channel and the summit of the far-extended precipices were perpetually flying rooks and wood-pigeons, and now and then a hawk, filling the profound abyss with their wild cawing, deep murmur, or shrilly shriek. Sometimes a heron would stand erect and still on some little stone island, or rise up like a white cloud along the black wall of the chasm and disappear. Winged creatures alone could inhabit this region. ”

“ The hawks too of this coast do not differ from those of the United States. We here see the large brown hawk, the small or sparrow hawk, and one of an intermediate size, called in the United States, the hen hawk, which has a long tail and blue wings, and is extremely fierce, and rapid in its flight. The hawks, crows, and ravens are common to every part of this country, their nests being scattered in the high cliffs, along the whole course of the Columbia and its southeastern branches. ”

“ The hawk alighted on the dead branch, and sat upright, motionless, as if surprised. The change was so sudden that it almost seemed as if the duck had been metamorphosed into a hawk on the instant, by the stroke of an invisible enchanter's wand.
The fisher of the chutes, meanwhile, was swimming straight downstream for the broken water. Like his unfortunate little cousin, the teal, he, too, had felt the fear of death smitten into his heart, and was heading desperately for the refuge of some dark overhanging bank, deep-fringed with weeds, where the dreadful eye of the hawk should not discern him. ”

“ Males gray; females brown Medium-sized hawk Always with an obvious white rump
During the summer this handsome bird of prey is a familiar sight soaring close to the ground over all large marshy areas. In flight it holds its wings at an angle over its back, rather than parallel to the ground as do most hawks. It mates for life, bringing forth a brood of young once each summer. The nest is quite un-hawk-like, located on the ground and constructed of tall grasses. The Marsh Hawk leaves the area and migrates southward sometime in early September. ”