Lake Umbagog, Maine
1895
Sept
24
  Clear and a little cooler with strong W wind.
  At about 7 a.m., first after I had come out of my tent, a         
Pigeon Hawk drove a flock of ten or twelve Blue Jays into the    
birch grove on Pine Point and for eight or ten minutes circled
or hovered above them. So long as the Jays remained perched he
made no attempt to attack them although he must have seen them
as more than half the leaves have fallen & this foliage is everywhere
thin. But the Jays appeared to be restless and venturesome and
every half minute or so one of them would rise above the trees and attempt
to fly off. The instant he appeared the Hawk would swoop
at him with such velocity that my eye could scarcely follow
him, gliding down a long, gentle decline, moving his wings
steadily yet [delete]with[/delete] with a rapid, tremulous or vibrating motion. At each
swoop I felt soon he would strike his prey & I repeatedly saw him
check his speed abruptly and thrust out his talons in the attempt
to do o but at the last moment the Jay invariably eluded
him by dropping suddenly into a tree top when the Hawk would
shoot past, circle & rise again to make ready for another
stoop. I have said that he kept above the Jays but really he
usually kept a little to one side of the flock (as if to tempt
them to try to escape) so that his swoops were ordinarily 20 to
40 yards in length with a drop of perhaps 6 or 8 feet for the total distance. He would make this distance while the
Jay was flying three or four yards. It was one of the most
beautiful & interesting spectacles of this kind that I have ever
witnessed. The Hawk seemed to be in dead earnest but
in view of what I have seen Pigeon & Duck Hawks do on
previous occasions I suspect that this bird was merely
 amusing himself. The Jays did not seem to take him very
seriously or to be much frightened. Finally he disappeared &
they flew off in peace. An hour later I shot a young Pigeon Hawk near
Leonard's Pond.
[margin]Falco
columbarius
and Blue Jays[/margin]