The arcane world of falconry is infamous for a snobbery that dates back to the medieval period, when different raptors were pegged to a hierarchical list of feudal stations. So the noble peregrine was for princes, the dainty merlin was milady’s bird, and – as we know from Barry Hines’s novel – it was just […]
Tag: Hawk
Power line nests put US ravens in pole position for prey
Ravens in the US are building their nests on electricity power lines and using the height to target their prey, according to new research. The scientists say the majority of ravens in the study area were now living on transmission poles and posed a bigger threat to endangered species. Raven numbers in western states have […]
Review: Bird Sense: What it’s Like to be a Bird, by Tim Birkhead
Who’d be a bird anyway? Chickens have bi-focal vision: one eye for the close-up work of pecking seed; one for the fox on the horizon or the hawk in the sky. Peregrine falcons don’t swoop directly on prey – as the crow flies, to coin a phrase – but in a wide arc, using the […]
Free-tailed funnel cloud (reprint from June 2011)
When Doppler radar first arrived in the area known affectionately to Texans as the Hill Country, the local television station meteorologists were understandably eager to show off the weather forecasting capabilities of their newest toy. Unfortunately, they got off to a less than impressive start. Night after night that summer, evening thunderstorms were forecast but […]
Common Buzzard……whats in a name?
The Common Buzzard – Buteo buteo is a hawk and the most common bird of prey in the United Kingdom. The name Buzzard will present no ambiguity to most Europeans but to those speaking English in the “new world” confusion will have immediately set in! The word “Buzzard” in the USA is a broad term […]