The Fish Hawks of Gardiner's Island 



iS9 



on the ground a hundred yards away. At 12:50 the female dropped all caution, 

 and the previously often repeated alarm note was replaced by a wholly different 

 call, a high, rapidly uttered tweet-tweet-tweel, which proved to be a food call 

 to the male. At one o'clock, in response to it, he came to the nest, but the blind 

 was too near, and, taking wing almost as he alighted, returned to his perch 

 on the beach. Again the female uttered her food call and the young were now 

 permitted to move about the nest. Finally the male came, but, as before, his fears 

 overcame him and he departed quickly, taking the fish with him. Three times 

 this performance was repeated, and on the fourth, the female, losing patience 

 or prompted by hunger, attempted to take the fish from his foot with her bill, 

 when, as the male arose, the fish was pulled from his grasp and dropped over 

 the edge of the nest to the sand at its base. This was a catastrophe with which 

 neither bird was prepared to cope. The male made no move to get another 

 fish, but went back to his perch in the meadow. The female repeated her food 

 call more loudly and the young apparently asked for food, but no experience 

 had fitted her to deal with this chain of events and the fish at the foot of the 

 nest was left where it fell. 



YOUNG FISH HAWKS FEIGXIXG DEATH 



