I've watched karasu carefully wait for a yellow light to drop his walnut in an intersection. The last car passing cracked his nut, then he had time to gather the meat during the light change before other cars came along.
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How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
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Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#12[deleted]
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#13> Cooper’s hawk is on a rather short list of bird of prey species that have successfully adapted to life in cities. A city is a difficult and very dangerous habitat for any bird, but particularly for a large raptor specializing in live prey: you have to avoid windows, cars, utility wires, and countless other dangers while catching something to eat every day.
Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more sizeable. That said, their size make them very apt to hunt pigeons, so this could be a less risky niche to hunt for; I mean, pigeons usually fly higher up than sparrows.
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#14I've watched karasu carefully wait for a yellow light to drop his walnut in an intersection. The last car passing cracked his nut, then he had time to gather the meat during the light change before other cars came along.
Some crows in Japan do something like that, dropping nuts on/near a pedestrian crossing, and waiting for a green pedestrian light. See https://youtu.be/BGPGknpq3e0?feature=shared
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#15> Cooper’s hawk is on a rather short list of bird of prey species that have successfully adapted to life in cities. A city is a difficult and very dangerous habitat for any bird, but particularly for a large raptor specializing in live prey: you have to avoid windows, cars, utility wires, and countless other dangers while catching something to eat every day. Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more…
Plus pigeons are not exactly known for being incredibly smart or agile, so if you're big enough to take one down, you probably won't struggle too much for food.
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#16> Cooper’s hawk is on a rather short list of bird of prey species that have successfully adapted to life in cities. A city is a difficult and very dangerous habitat for any bird, but particularly for a large raptor specializing in live prey: you have to avoid windows, cars, utility wires, and countless other dangers while catching something to eat every day. Peregrine falcons adapted quite well, and they're much more…
The other day when visited local city park (in South London) I spotted a Buzzard just chilling on the tree among pigeons.
Small, but majestic nonetheless.
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#17I have a similar story. I was taxiing a Cessna 152 at LHBS. It is a big grassy field. On that day there were a large flock of black birds sitting on the grass. I made the usual radio call to announce that I'm leaving the runway and taxiing to the tie-downs when the birds flitted away just between my airplane's nose and my destination. The birds outside of that "road" by roughly a wingspan distance remained on the gro…
I'm not an ornithologist but I think birds integrate some onboard magnetic compass sensors. So, it would be interesting if they can pick up the magnetic part of an electromagnetic wave of the radio. Seems very low likelihood but would be cool.
Edit to add https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230828130356.h... . What frequency were you at? Seems they may actually be listening.
Re: How a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully
#18I've watched karasu carefully wait for a yellow light to drop his walnut in an intersection. The last car passing cracked his nut, then he had time to gather the meat during the light change before other cars came along.
Some crows in Japan do something like that, dropping nuts on/near a pedestrian crossing, and waiting for a green pedestrian light. See https://youtu.be/BGPGknpq3e0?feature=shared
Looks like Karasu is the Japanese word for crow. So this is an interesting linguistics exchange