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