While channel surfing I happened upon a brief piece on a hawk I’d never heard of; Harris’s Hawk, Parabuteo unicinctus. What made it especially interesting is it displayed a behaviour which is incredibly uncommon in the largely anti-social world of raptors: hunting in packs.
The footage had five hawks chasing down a rabbit: after the first hunter tried a standard pursuit and failed, the other four began to relay, taking turns chasing the rabbit down. Eventually the rabbit managed to find a log to hide under; the hawks now positioned themselves on tall cacti in the area, while one of their number landed and waddled under the log.
As soon as the rabbit made a run for it one of the waiting hawks caught it, and the group shared the kill.
This is, as I say, very unusual. Amongst most hawks, eagles, owls, and the like, even mated pairs don’t usually display this level of co-operation. Neat.
Anyway, I wandered off and looked up information on them, which largely confirmed what I got from the doco, along with such tidbits as their habit of backstanding (as it implies, stacking themselves in towers by standing on one anothers’ backs), and their popularity in falconry (smart, social birds are easier to train):
- The Audobon Society’s entry in their database of birds on North America.
- The Carolina Raptor Centre’s page.
- Paul Frost’s entry on the Harris’s Hawk, from his site on raptors.
- The Washington Zoo fact sheet.