A Family of North Dakota Marsh Hawks 



By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY 



A PAIR of Marsh Hawks got so excited when I crossed a patch of silver- 

 leaf bushes, the day of my arrival in the wheat-belt, that I spoke to a 

 farmer about it, and found that he had stumbled on the nest some 

 time before, and that it had then contained eggs. Were the young still in the 

 nest, or was I too late to watch their development? 



Anxious to lose no time, I soon returned to the gray brush patch with field- 

 glass and camp-stool. Fortunately, the male Hawk was out on the prairie at 

 the moment, and the female was hunting so low that I was able to creep in 

 quietly up the wind behind a line of the high silver-leaf bushes — well named 

 argentea — and sit down undiscovered in a clump of wild plum at the head of 

 the patch. From my vantage ground, I could see Gulls crossing the point 

 between the two arms of Stump Lake, and watch White-winged Scoters skim- 

 ming over the whitecaps. Only a few rods from my shelter, the female Marsh 

 Hawk, with her brown back, broad wings and white rump patch, was to be 

 seen skimming over the adjoining prairie grass, or beating low over the lovely 

 silvery bushes, some of whose spaces were filled with wild rose and anemones. 

 As she went down, she gave her hunting call — cha-cha-cha — and several times 

 dropped to the ground, suggesting mice or young nestlings. Once, before flying 

 down, she hovered in the air, calling. 



When flying high enough to be exposed to the strong prairie wind, her 

 maneuvers, and those of the male when he joined her, were fascinating and 

 beautiful to watch. After flapping low over the ground, they would set their 

 wings and, perfected monoplanes, rise with the wind, tilting and turning, chang- 

 ing their angles with enviable skill to meet the vagaries of the air-currents. 

 They would sail with set wings, buffeted by the wind, and then, as if their 

 saiHng muscles were tired, turn tail in midair and sweep back with a beautiful 

 downward curve. 



When the brown, white-rumped female was beating over the ground, 

 incidentally performing aeronautic feats, the gray male came flying in from 

 the prairie, crossing so close over the bush where I was in hiding that I saw his 

 white wing-linings and black spread quill tips. Discovering me, he broke out 

 into a shrill screaming cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha. When his alarm-note caught 

 his mate's ear, she came sweeping toward me till I saw the barring of her wing- 

 linings. After flying excitedly over me, she lit and balanced herself by spread- 

 ing her tail so wide that its dark bands showed. 



Having been discovered, I left my bhnd and went out to investigate the 

 various spots where the female had gone down — all but one, as I remembered 

 afterward with chagrin. If the birds were going to be so wary, it would save 

 time to get the farmer to point out the nest. When he did so, I recognized the 

 one spot I had not examined. I had been deceived by the birds' tactics. Had 



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