DUCK HAWK 61 



brood safely. C. L. Broley has sent me the following note: "A duck 

 hawk was flying high over a field when a small bird quickly mounted 

 up and attacked it as a kingbird does a crow, swooping down in fierce 

 plunges until the duck hawk turned and fled the way it had come, 

 giving us an excellent view of the pugnacious little battler that had 

 so completely turned the tables and put the deadly raptor to flight. 

 It was a sharp-shinned hawk, a slight little fellow scarcely larger than 

 a sparrow hawk! The enraged duck hawk was completely out- 

 maneuvered by the little sharpshin, which mounted above it with the 

 greatest ease time after time and dashed down on its back, apparently 

 delivering blows that were at least irritating, as the duck hawk 

 repeatedly tried to strike sideways at its spunky tormentor." 



Very rarely have duck hawks been known to attack human beings 

 that were disturbing their nests, but G. Bartlett Hendricks (1935) 

 tells of an especially savage female that attacked four different people 

 several times. All these people, while attempting to photograph 

 the young hawks in the nest, were struck repeatedly and severely 

 scratched by the sharp talons of the hawk. "A small boy, who was 

 standing on the summit some distance from the nest, was hit from 

 behind and knocked on his face." The hawk followed one of the 

 men "a hundred yards or more from the nest and dove at him 

 repeatedly." 



Mr. Hagar had a somewhat similar experience with this same bird, 

 at Monument Mountain, of which he says: "The female was even 

 noisier and more demonstrative than on the day I found this nest, and 

 by the time I was down on a level with the chicks was coming within a 

 foot or two of my head at each plunge. 



"This was interesting, so, by way of trying her out, I leaned down 

 and picked up a youngster. Once he was in my hand, my attention 

 was all on him and I forgot the matter for a moment — a short moment; 

 she struck me a stunning blow on the top of the head. I was well 

 wedged between the cliff and a small tree that grows just south of the 

 nest, so that she could not have dislodged me, but my head stung for a 

 minute. I kept my eye on her, as I replaced the chick and withdrew 

 a few feet up the slope, and several times she passed inside of the little 

 tree." 



He says later, of the same bird: "This bird has struck everyone 

 who has been to the nest since my last visit; ten days ago she attacked 

 Ben Leavitt, apparently with both bill and feet, for she took a jagged 

 bite out of his shoulder, tore the sleeve out of his shirt, and left three 

 long scratches down his upper arm; and early in the week she struck 

 Warden Giddings on the knee, as he stood beside the nest." 



Voice. — When I visited the Bear Mountain aerie with R. P. Staple- 

 ton, he called a falcon from the cliff by giving a shrill, nasal, squealing 

 call, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, rapidly uttered in a high key, which he said was 



