It’s been a long time since evolutionary ecologist Bruce Lyon, now retired from UC Santa Cruz but still working, has sent us photos. But today he’s back with some great bird shots: an interaction between an owl and a thieving hawk. Bruce’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
My office on the Coastal Campus of the University of California in Santa Cruz is set in lovely coastal chaparral habitat and is loaded with birds. A former student recently told the she was frequently seeing one or two American barn owls (Tyto alba) hunting the Coastal Campus around sunset so I went out that evening to look for an owl.
I got lucky. A couple of minutes after I arrived, a barn owl started patrolling an open meadow in front of me with its typical slow moth-like flight. It suddenly plummeted to the ground and stayed on the ground for a minute. Eventually it took off with a vole or some similar rodent in its talons. Some species of owls kill their vole victims by repeatedly lacerating them on the ground with their talons—perhaps this is why the owl spent a minute on the ground before taking off.
Alternatively, perhaps before taking off the owl was scanning for other predators or scavengers that might steal its prey (kleptoparasitism). If this were the case, however, the barn owl did not look carefully enough because as soon as it took off a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) gave chase. After 100 meters (yards) the hawk caught up to the owl, grabbed it by the talons and tried to steal the vole. The owl held on tight and flew away from the encounter with its vole. Hunter 1, Kleptoparasite 0!
As I was writing these notes, I first wrote ‘barn owl’ instead of ‘American barn owl’. I had forgotten that what was formerly considered a single species (the barn owl) was recently split into three species: American, eastern and western barn owls.
The owl takes off with its vole:
The red-tailed hawk just as it caught up with the owl:
The hawk grabbed the owl’s talons in an attempt to steal the vole:
The owl escaped and the red-tail continued pursuit:
My favorite of the photos. I love the mood and the way the light picks up the hawk’s tail and the owl’s wings and tail:
Eventually the owl outmaneuvered the hawk and the hawk gave up:
