Competition

It’s always a good sign and a bad sign when I show up for a puddlewatch and find that an accipiter has beat me to it: a good sign because it means that there are birds around, a bad sign because it means that they will likely be even more skittish than usual. So it was late yesterday afternoon at Catalina State Park. At least the large juvenile Cooper’s Hawk that was circling over my chosen pool moved on; a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk was more persistent, lurking for nearly 45 minutes in the thick hackberries before finally emerging triumphant with a White-crowned Sparrow in his talons.

White-crowns were the most abundant of the birds that did come down to water, followed by 10 or so Lawrence’s Goldfinches. Yellow-rumped Warblers were present in large numbers, but only a few dared approach the puddle; most stayed up in the trees, with an eye to the sky.