This individual was huge. Later this same day as we were getting dinner ready at our campsite, Andy noticed motion in a tree and something take off. At first it looked like a kite (the toy, not the bird) with a long tail that kept circling around in large sweeping motions. As we kept watching, it became clear that it was a very large bird of some sort with a long snake in its talons, about twice as long as the wingspan of the bird. The bird soared around with the dangling snake, hardly flapping its wings at all, for a good 15 minutes or so. We guessed it was an immature golden eagle based on a "Mantenga sus ojos en el cielo" condor pamphlet the park ranger gave us (she was out of the English version). Does anyone know if this is typical behavior? It reminded me of the coat of arms of Mexico that is used on the national flag.
5 comments:
I saw a red-tailed hawk with dangling snake just today. I have seen three other hawks carrying snakes in the last two summers. I think I have just learned to look. They often seem like they are having a hard time handllng it. They land and then take off after a few minutes and land again. Maybe it is harder to kill a snake than their other prey and it's hard to fly with it and hard to land with a live one. I wonder if they pick out the meat around the bones or tear off big chunks and swallow bones and all. I often find coyote scat in the summer with snake scales and sometimes snake bones. I hope some of your other readers have some hawk/snake observations to share.
Saw a red-tailed dangling a large rattlesnake (guessing, it looked like it had a chunky head). I have always guessed that they do this to keep the snake from coiling up around the legs and/or striking at it. Dangling the snake by one end could help to keep the snake relatively immobilized.
My previous comment should have noted that I saw this happen last week.
I did some further digging and did find a reference, Hubbard 1974 ( pdf available here ), that speculated it is actually a form of courtship display. That might make sense given that this is something that I have only seen during the summer, when hawks are mating. But that also is when there are more snakes out, so who knows?
Hmm, maybe it was a red-tailed we saw. Janet commented on my Fort Ord - flickr pic a similar observation of a red-tailed.
Neil, that's an great article. (I've got to learn how to link to pdfs) I think Cindy will like it, too. Thank you!
Oops, strike the Fort Ord bit.
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