392 
FOREST AND STREAM 
August, 1919 
Duck hawk about to strike. This is the Perigrine Falcon used in olden times by the 
nobility for hunting 
crows and the noise they made was deaf- 
ening. 
Suddenly above the racket could be 
heard four shrill “ke-e-e’s” and a big 
Red-shouldered hawk sailed up and 
struck the owl, knocking feathers from 
its head. A second hawk, evidently its 
mate, sailed up and joined in the at- 
tack. First one, then the other, would 
squeal and strike, and all the time the 
crows were circling about and cawing 
for dear life. The owl finally received 
a blow from one hawk which bent its 
head over at right angles, and the other 
hawk on its next attack knocked the 
head completely off, leaving only a wood- 
en peg upon which the head had been 
fastened. Even with the owl headless 
the hawks kept up the attack,' until I 
was afraid they would completely spoil 
it, so I came out of my blind and scared 
them off. I put the decoy up a good 
many times that winter, and always the 
same pair of Red-shoulders came and 
attacked it, so it received a fearful pun- 
ishing from them. Sometimes his whole 
head would be knocked off ; at other 
times it would be his back that suf- 
fered, but glue and tacks fixed him up, 
though he was left rather ragged in 
appearance. 
A Rough-legged hawk was reported to 
me one day to be hunting over certain 
fields, so I set up my owl and camera. 
A string was attached to the trigger of 
the camera, as it was covered over with 
bushes. I sat in the blind, smoking 
and enjoying the view which looked over 
the woods and ocean, the string in my 
hand, and a gun within reach for any 
chance rarity that might come. For 
about half an hour I sat there with- 
out seeing a thing, except a Blue jay 
which came and scolded from a nearby 
tree. Suddenly a shadow flashed over 
me and, on looking up, I saw a large 
Goshawk. I had only to give the string 
in my hand a pull and I would have 
had a picture of a Goshawk within two 
feet of the owl with wings outstretched 
and feet extended ready to strike, but 
I completely forgot that I had any cam- 
era with me, I was so keen to kill it, 
so I reached for my gun and shot it. I 
have only one excuse to offer and that 
is that I had missed three Goshawks 
during that same week and was too 
anxious to get a good specimen for my 
collection which only lacked one. Thus 
I lost a wonderful chance to take what 
would have been an interesting picture. 
O NE morning I went to a blind on 
a hilltop between two small patches 
of woods for a chance shot at a 
Goshawk that had been seen there the 
day before. It was still dark when 1 
arrived, and I laid my gun in the blind 
and went to the tree to get the decoy up 
in position. To do this I had a long 
pole upon the top of which the owl was 
fitted, so all I had to do was to stand 
the pole against the tree. This morn- 
ing, instead of doing as I usually did, I 
thought I would tie the pole to the tree, 
which was really unnecessary. While 
I stood there tying the string I instinct- 
ively felt that there was something 
about and glanced up. To my amaze- 
ment there was the Goshawk, though it 
was not yet daybreak, close to the owl. 
I was now in a bad predicament as my 
gun was thirty or forty feet from me, 
but, choosing a time when the hawk 
was farthest from the woods on one of 
his circles, T ran to my gun and got a 
long shot at it as it was going into the 
woods, but missed. Without doubt this 
Goshawk must have been sitting in a 
tree not far away and had seen the owl 
suddenly appear, for it was too dark 
for it to have been flying about. 
Early in March one year I was taking 
a walk along the Palisades not far from 
Englewood, N. J,., and saw what I 
thought was a pair of Duck hawks fly 
off the cliff and sail out over the Hud- 
son River which was far below. Going 
back home for my camera and owl, I 
soon returned and followed a path along 
the top of the Palisades to the place 
where I had seen the birds fly. I had 
only just reached the spot and was stand- 
ing there looking for a suitable place 
to put up the owl and blind, when I 
heard a call and up sailed an old male 
Duck hawk and perched on a chimney 
rock less than twenty feet from me. 
For at least two minutes, possibly more, 
he sat there looking from side to side. 
In a moment the air was full of crows, cawing and flying around the owl 
