Watching for trouble

Today was a hot summer day. I was outside setting up the baths for the birds in my aviary. Several came out to take a dip. 2 males, Hans and Petey, played hooky from nest duty for a while to bathe. :Rolling eyes: After a few minutes, the birds were laying spread out in the sun to dry off. Then Hans, looking up, stiffened and gave that grunting alarm cry they do when seeing something threatening. The other birds looked up alarmed. I tried to see what they saw but could not. I moved away a bit to get out from under some tree branches. After a minute I saw it. Very, very high up in the sky a Redtailed Hawk was circling. It occured to me that even in the aviary or loft doing their daily routine the pigeons watch for danger without even thinking about it. Whenever I hear any of the birds making that grunting noise, I always look around to see if anything is amiss. My 2 oops babies were out at the time and saw the hawk. It was probably their first sight of one. I wonder if they will remember it.

I'll bet they will remember.
Most folks don't even notice Hawks and I didn't either but since my assiciation with pigeons, I notice them everywhere.

It is amazing how alert they are even when they know they are 'safe'.

When our aviary was inside the AZ room, every now and then Malio would begin to sound like an owl with his 'Hoo! Hoo!'. The rest proceeded to their 'statue' position. Even if they were eating, everyone stopped.
After a minute or so if there were no more 'Hoo Hoo's' everyone would continue with what they were doing.

One day when Malio started in, I looked out and there was a feral cat wantering through our backyard. Interestingly enough our two 'pet' cats are always in the AZ room (but never outside) and the birds could care less if they were there.

I'm sure on some of those occasions there was a hawk somewhere out there. I honestly don't think they could have seen it, but something definitely would alert them.

Fancyfeathers wrote:

When our aviary was inside the AZ room, every now and then Malio would begin to sound like an owl with his 'Hoo! Hoo!'. The rest proceeded to their 'statue' position. Even if they were eating, everyone stopped.
After a minute or so if there were no more 'Hoo Hoo's' everyone would continue with what they were doing.

LOL Hoo Hoo's....recently my 2 oops babies were in the aviary with their parents. One baby saw something and started with the Hoo! Hoo!, but it came out as Peep! Peep! It was too cute.

Jenaka wrote:

LOL Hoo Hoo's....recently my 2 oops babies were in the aviary with their parents.
One baby saw something and started with the Hoo! Hoo!, but it came out as Peep! Peep! It was too cute.

:That\\\'s so f
Gotta love these babies! They are all true

Were they sunbathing outside the aviary? That would be very frightening!

We had a sparrow hawk visit our garden one day a couple of years ago. When we looked in the aviary every single feral had disappeared into the shed or shelter. The woodies were perching in the flight, but with their necks extended right up and their eyes wild. At the time we only had one collared dove, Poppet. She was preening herself, oblivious to any danger...maybe because we didn't have any other doves to warn her and she doesn't understand Wood pigeon or feral pigeon.

Of the three species it is the dovies that the sparrowhawk targets most often.

Cynthia wrote:

We had a sparrow hawk visit our garden one day a couple of years ago.

When we looked in the aviary every single feral had disappeared into the shed or shelter. The woodies were perching in the flight, but with their necks extended right up and their eyes wild. At the time we only had one collared dove, Poppet. She was preening herself, oblivious to any danger...maybe because we didn't have any other doves to warn her and she doesn't understand Wood pigeon or feral pigeon.

Of the three species it is the dovies that the sparrowhawk targets most often.

Now that you mention it, I don't recall our two doves paying any attention to Malio's alerts.

Cindy