Bird Battles

There is a single dead tree overlooking Bartlett Park that is much loved by the crows; my guess is that they like being able to survey their domain.

Unfortunately for them, there is also a hawk who likes the same tree, and no sooner had they settled down for an evening of gossip than the hawk (a red tail, I think) arrived to spoil the fun.

They chased him away, clear over to the Albertson's parking lot, where he settled briefly in the palm trees. They didn't like that, either, so they kept on heckling him.

Whereupon, he turned around and flew right back to their tree.

Then the whole process had to be repeated, with single crows diving as near as they dared and cawing their alarm until the rest joined in, the haw flew off, they settled, he came back, and so on.

Of course, there were times when all the bigger birds were gone. The smaller birds then took advantage of the peaceful interlude to settle down on the tree themselves--and start quarreling over who got to sit on which branch.