Sparrow Hawk Nesting in a Bird Box
Sparrow Hawk Nesting in a Bird Box
It is a common experience of the western ornithologist to find birds of desert or otherwise treeless regions, resorting to all sorts of expediences for nesting sites.
The resourceful Flicker is responsible for some unusual records and we expect something of him in this line. I was, however, surprised this summer by a Sparrow Hawk (Falco sparverius) who occupied, with his family, a pigeon box on the west end of a cow barn in a very populous barn yard in Modesto, California. Another box, but a few feet away, housed a family of pigeons at the same time.
Hudson, in his “Naturalist in La Plata,” discusses the ability that non-predatory birds display in discriminating between Falconidae dangerous to themselves and those that are either unable or indisposed to do them harm. We have here, possibly, a case of discrimination on the part of the pigeon and of resourcefulness on the part of the Sparrow Hawk.
LOYE HOLMES MILLER
Los Angeles, California.
