Screeching Blue Jays and Northern Mockingbirds pulled me off my route. They were yelling at this young Red-tailed Hawk. The Mockingbirds were clipping the raptor’s back as they dived at it. When the buteo flew, two Mockingbirds followed.
It looks like there are Cooper’s Hawk fledglings in Prospect Park again this year. (That’ll make for two years I haven’t seen them!)
Here in American Kestrel land, the profusion of colorful falcons at the beginning of the month has dwindled down to the occasional flyby or call. How many of the young survived remains an unknown question. Mortality is high during the first year. And those that do survive are sent packing to other territories.
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More than 150,000 now dead from coronavirus in the U.S. An ideology opposed to community, society, and shared effort did this. Politicians against competence, rationality, and humanity did this — and continue to do it. The fault lies at the maggot-ridden top, with Trump, that piece of orange-colored shit too stupid and venal, too lazy and vicious, to care. It will be his “greatest” legacy.