That’s great Brian, cheers!
Daily Archives: October 18, 2026
Re: Interesting predator vs prey interaction
Interesting! As of today, I still have a single Blue Jay coming into the platform feeder for sunflower seeds. Fri, had an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk come in & scattered all the House Finches & BC Chickadees, but didn’t faze the jay, in the least. Just kept right on gathering seeds.
And, as of Fri, a single Steller’s Jay was still back in the woods. Today, have noticed the White-crowned Sparrows have moved on, but Juncos are still here in good numbers. And, a few Pine Siskins are still coming into the feeder. Otherwise, kinda’ quiet. Waiting for Snow Geese, Tundra & Trumpeter Swans to appear.
Brian Carrigan
Blackfoot
Interesting predator vs prey interaction
Howdy All, After 15 fall/winters feeding jays and several other species at our Valley Co. place I observed an interesting kerfuffle between a sharp-shinned hawk and 2 corvid species.
This went on continually for almost 90 minutes and as far as I could tell never resulted in a kill for the raptor.
My multi block suet feeder was being fed on by both Stellar’s jays and magpies at the time, when a SSHA began diving in and chasing the corvids.
Often the hawk would briefly perch on limbs feet away from the jays or w/I a few yards away before trying again. While the hawk watched the jays would almost immediately resume feeding.
With each attack the corvids either easily evaded the attack or ganged-up on the “inexperienced sharpie”. The raptor appeared to be a first year male as its size was barely larger than the 4-5 Stellar’s jays it was attacking.
All the while these attacks persisted the corvids continued to immediately return to the suet feeder, not appearing to be the least bit “panicked” by the attacks.
I’m guessing 3-4 dozen attacks occurred before the unsuccessful sharpie left the scene?
By that time I was feeling rather sorry for this hungry sharpie. 🤣 Sorry for the poor quality pics, thru glass.
Fun day in the Ponderosa’s, Cheers and happy birding.
Rich Rusnak
This went on continually for almost 90 minutes and as far as I could tell never resulted in a kill for the raptor.
My multi block suet feeder was being fed on by both Stellar’s jays and magpies at the time, when a SSHA began diving in and chasing the corvids.
Often the hawk would briefly perch on limbs feet away from the jays or w/I a few yards away before trying again. While the hawk watched the jays would almost immediately resume feeding.
With each attack the corvids either easily evaded the attack or ganged-up on the “inexperienced sharpie”. The raptor appeared to be a first year male as its size was barely larger than the 4-5 Stellar’s jays it was attacking.
All the while these attacks persisted the corvids continued to immediately return to the suet feeder, not appearing to be the least bit “panicked” by the attacks.
I’m guessing 3-4 dozen attacks occurred before the unsuccessful sharpie left the scene?
By that time I was feeling rather sorry for this hungry sharpie. 🤣 Sorry for the poor quality pics, thru glass.
Fun day in the Ponderosa’s, Cheers and happy birding.
Rich Rusnak