Hawks...and Up to 84 Miles

Photo: jimbophoto

Jim and I went biking this weekend and logged another 24 miles. We're going to push the distance each time out now so we can be sure to get up to around 30 miles a ride.  This ride brings us to 84 miles this season...way, way, way short of what a good season total would be. But then things have just gotten started, and this is actually not bad given the crazy unpredictable weather we've had.

This ride took us from downtown Wheaton up towards Elgin (we actually stopped to turn back at Rte 25 - Stearns Road). The lack of rain has left a lot of the marsh areas really low on water. However, we did see a hawk glide down and roost on a branch. This picture here is a cooper's hawk, but the one we saw could as easily have been a red-tailed hawk.

Now, by themselves, hawk's aren't such an amazing sight (not trying to be jaded, they're just not that uncommon). What made this sighting interesting was that the hawk seemed to be trying to get away from another - larger - bird. The hawk had landed and then made its scree-scree sound. As we passed, I happened to look back and saw a much bigger bird (I'm guessing another hawk) slowly gliding by above the branches just over where the hawk was.

I don't think hawks prey on each other, so perhaps it was a territorial thing. Or maybe the second bird was an egret or a crane or something and was chasing the hawk off.