Ok you nature experts ..... hawk question

[hittman]

Would a hawk bury it's food to save for a later time?

 

[contender]

I've never heard of it. I have seen a FEW occasions where they might have been feeding on roadkill.

 

[gramps]

As in bury where? I have seen them put a carcass in a tree, and place sticks on top of it.
gramps

 

[hittman]

As in bury where?

In the ground.
My back yard. Not sayin' it was a hawk, just wondering.

A few weeks ago the neighbors new puppy dug a hole out back about the size of a gallon milk jug. I filled it with a shovel or two of dirt and all was well. I live "in town" not out in the country.

About 2 weeks ago I was mowing the yard and noticed what I thought was a squirrel tail laying on that new fill dirt. I bent down and grabbed it and was pretty surprised to see an entire freshly killed squirrel attached to the tail! There didn't appear to be any "damage" on the squirrel. That thing was head first in that hole and hadn't been dead long enough to even put off a smell. I thought that was strange but .... stuff happens.

Fast forward to today and as I pull into the alley at the end of the block I see a hawk on the ground chasing a squirrel around a tree. They had quite a tussle going on before the squirrel got away, went up the tree with the hawk right behind and disappeared into a hole in the tree. I pull in the drive and notice something has removed all the dirt from that hole where the squirrel was buried a couple of weeks back. Made me wonder if the hawk went to claim his ( or her ) stash and seeing it was gone, had to hunt again.

That might be the first time I've seen in person the war between a hawk and it's prey. Was pretty cool indeed.

 

[Tom W]

Not that I'm aware of, but my wife's daughter works in the ornithology department at Cornell University. I'll send her a text and ask.

 

[Colonialgirl]

DANG; YOU got me !! :shock: :shock: :shock:

I been ridding the yard of tree rats with a pellet rifle and then started trapping; I HAD to get rid of them Someplace !! :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:



Just Foolin'

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :wink: :wink: :mrgreen:

 

[Mobuck]

Hawks are not built for digging.

 

[GRAMPS 51]

Hi I would say no but I have seen a small hawk leave song birds hanging in the brush that it had killed and come back later and feed on I live in a spot where the bird watchers come all the time so I went down to talk to some of them and found out it was a Northern Srike (probably spelled wrong) it was hundreds of miles out of its known territory people from 3 states came here to see it

Gramps

 

[Tom W]

Well, my Wife's daughter said this....

Not that I know of, but they do cach food. It is possible, but they wouldn't dig a real hole. It's more common for them to cache food in a tree..

Of course they do stand on the ground eating prey, so what looks like digging could be scratching for dropped pieces.

 

[BearBio]

I've never heard of hawks doing that but I'll check with our bird biologist if he's in.

Shrikes aren't hawks. The loggerhead shrike is called a "butcher bird" because he will impale his prey on spikes (such as barbed wire) and thorns for later. Roadrunners (a cuckoo) will do the same sometimes.

 

[Conservative]

Colonialgirl,

Years ago we moved into a very newly developed sub-division.

For years, we were tree rat free.

Once trees grew large enough to house these things here they came...

I discovered once I rid my yard of these things (I was afraid they'd get in my attic) a few weeks would elapse and then a new crop of would move in.

It took about 3 years of me warring with them before I threw in the towel.

They were their to stay no matter how many I culled...and believe I stopped counting at over 70. I don't give up easily.

But, no matter how many you shoot, you'll never eradicate them.

I finally quit as doing so was like shoveling sand against the tide...

 

[BearBio]

I've never heard of hawks doing that but I'll check with our bird biologist if he's in.

Shrikes aren't hawks. The loggerhead shrike is called a "butcher bird" because he will impale his prey on spikes (such as barbed wire) and thorns for later. Roadrunners (a cuckoo) will do the same sometimes.

Checked with Karl and he says no raptors found in North America bury their prey=a few stash kills in trees, etc=but always off the ground.

 

[hittman]

Very informative ..... thanks for all the feedback.

 

[Pierow]

...Checked with Karl and he says no raptors found in North America bury their prey=a few stash kills in trees, etc=but always off the ground.

They also stash in trees to warn other predators / competitors. I may have mentioned this before but I saw a decomposing Seagull stashed atop a tall pine about 20' from an eagles nest. It was put there by mamma eagle to tell the other Seagulls, "You've been warned."

I told a guide what I saw and he confirmed he had seen this behavior before. I saw it first hand when I fed an eagle with a slot-Walleye I had just caught. A seagull made it to the flopping Walleye first only to be knocked into next week by the Eagle I intended to feed. Wild world of nature about thirty feet from our boat. One of the neatest nature things I have seen.

Pierow