Date: 3/17/25 5:56 pm From: Scott Atkinson via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Northern Hawk Owls behavior
Found earlier discourse interesting on N. Hawk-Owl behavior interesting, including notes on kestrel-like or kingfisher-like hovering. The reference to kingfisher was a better fit for the more interesting of my two encounters.
In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR during the '90s, Seattleites (especially from Ballard) were among the very first Americans into the formerly-closed Russian Far East, specifically to undertake marine business. Most of us spent time in Petropavlovsk, the large seaport near the southeast corner of the Kamchatka Peninsula. As my RFE trips included two weekends, birding opportunities presented themselves. I usually found that the route east out of Petro—past the "gorodskoi tets" (the city thermal-power generating plant) to the nearby Pacific Ocean was productive, even in late fall and winter. This road passes by a small lake, passes along a defunct state-run collective farm, and along low stone-birch scrub and shrubby forest, before it reaches the dunes and beach.
Over the course of a few miles, I ran into no less than five N. Hawk-Owls along this route in late November 1999. The owls were in each case perched on fenceposts or telephone poles close to the road, and I observed two birds in flight. Both flew ahead of the vehicle, fairly low over the ground, then stopped to hover; we slowed (I'd hired a local driver) to observe. Amazingly, both times the owls dove headfirst (!) into the snow, hunting for prey. The second bird came away with a rodent (looked about right for a vole, sp).
