552 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 18, 1906. 
The Value of Birds of Prey. 
BY WILLIAM L. FINLEY. 
With Photographs from Life by Herman T. Bohlman. 
Red-tailed Hawk-Sparrow Hawk—Golden Eagle. 
Dr. A. K. Fisher, in his report on the “Hawks 
and Owls of the United States,” says that the 
birds of prey are peculiarly fitted by nature to 
play their parts in the maintenance of the bal¬ 
ance in the animal world. Possessed of amaz¬ 
ingly acute eyesight, strong bills for tearing 
their prey, sharp talons that lock with a never- 
failing clutch and insure the speedy death of a 
victim by piercing its very entrails, added to 
ample and enduring powers of wing, they must 
be admitted to be well equipped for their occu¬ 
pation. They are all great eaters, and, when 
the supply of food is unlimited, are gorged most 
of the time. Their digestion is very rapid and 
their assimilation is perfect; consequently the 
amount of food a bird consumes each day in re¬ 
lation to its own weight is very great. It is 
well that it is so, for the habit of taking more 
food than is necessary for their immediate needs 
enables them to store up force for future emer¬ 
gencies and pre-eminently fits them for the work 
of keeping nature’s balance, true. 
In a camera study of several of the birds of 
prey, we have visited the same nests six or 
eight different times during the period when the 
young were in the nest in order to get a life 
series of pictures showing the development of 
the birds. In doing this we have had some very 
good chances to watch the feeding habits of 
these creatures. It is well known to scientists 
that all birds of prey swallow a great deal of 
indigestible matter such as the fur and bones of 
animals and the feathers of birds. After the 
nutritious portions have been absorbed, the rest 
of the mass is formed into pellets in the stomach 
and is vomited up before a new supply of food 
is taken. By the examination of these pellets 
found about the nest, or under a roost, a scien¬ 
tist can get a perfect index to the character of 
the food that has been eaten. In addition to 
this, one generally finds the remains of creatures 
in the nest upon which the young birds have 
been feeding. 
The red-tail hawk is the best known of 
the larger Raptores throughout the Pacific coast 
region. It is common about the hills and in the 
valleys of California, where it builds in the 
scattered oak trees. Almost every little canon 
along the central coast region is occupied by a 
pair of red-tails. Their nests are easily found 
in the early spring by scanning the trees for 
a mile up the hillside with your field glass. But 
finding a red-tail’s nest is very different in Ore¬ 
gon. The birds are fairly common, but I seldom 
find a nest. They are too well hidden in the 
fir forests on the hills or in the tall cotton¬ 
woods along the rivers. 
We made a close study of a red-tail’s- nest we 
found in a tall cottonwood 120 feet from the 
ground. We made six different trips, each time 
climbing to the nest to study and photograph 
the yound birds. The parents were successful 
hunters; we never saw the time when their 
larder was empty. Nor did they resort to the 
chicken yard for food. On our first visits to 
the nest we found the remains of gophers and 
fish, and the feathers of quail and pheasants. 
One morning we saw the mangled body of a 
screech owl in the aery; almost a case of hawk 
eat hawk. The old red-tail had evidently found 
the victim returning home too late in the morn¬ 
ing. and there were no restrictions as to race 
and color in the hawk household. Later in the 
season when the banks of the Columbia over¬ 
flowed, covering most of the surrounding coun¬ 
try, the old hawk did not abandon his hunting 
preserve. He turned his attention entirely to 
NEST AND DOWNY YOUNG OF RED-TAIL HAWK, MAY 3. 
Photo copyright, 1902, by H. T. Bohlman and W. L. Finley. 
fishing. Where the carp and catfish fed about 
the edges of the pond, he had no trouble in 
catching enough for himself and nestlings to 
eat. Twice we found a carp over a foot in 
length in the nest. After that we saw no indi¬ 
cation of food other than fisb, and on our last 
visit picked up the head bones of seven cat¬ 
fish in the aery. 
The wild life of the red-tail fascinates me. He 
has an individuality that is as interesting as a 
persons. He has a character as clearly marked 
as any feathered creature I ever studied. The 
bleak winter winds that sweep the valley of 
the Columbia and drive the other birds to the 
southland, never bother him. This is his per¬ 
manent home. He is a vagabond. He is local 
in attachments and habits. He beats over the 
field along the edge of the woods as regularly 
as the fisherman casts his net. He has his 
favorite perch and he watches the pond as 
closely for carp as the farmer watches his or¬ 
chard. His routine of life is as marked as any 
inhabitant along the river. 
The abundance of red-tails in California is 
undoubtedly due to the large supply of natural 
food they find about those regions. Moles, 
squirrels, and other rodents are very plentiful and 
these hawks help to keep in check the pests that 
exert such an evil upon agricultural interests. 
If it were not for the bawks and owls in Cali¬ 
fornia, the balance of nature would surely swing 
very much against those who cultivate the soil. 
The red-tail is often called “chicken hawk,” 
but it does not deserve this name. Many of 
the hawks carry reputations that they do not 
deserve. Many people who live in the country 
are enemies of the hawks and owls and shoot 
them at every opportunity, because they think 
the hawk is the persistent enemy of poultry, 
whereas this is a very small part of his diet. 
In regions and in seasons when animal and in¬ 
sect food is scarce this hawk will catch chickens 
and game birds, but it lives mostly on mice and 
shrews as well as frogs, snakes, lizards and in¬ 
sects of various kinds. In a prairie and hilly 
country, almost the entire food of this hawk is 
squirrels, gophers, meadow mice and rabbits. 
It has been demonstrated by a careful exam¬ 
ination of hundreds of the stomachs of these 
hawks, carried on under the direction of the 
Department of Agriculture at Washington, that 
poultry and game birds do not constitute more 
that io per cent, of the food of this hawk. All 
the other beneficial animals preyed upon, in¬ 
cluding snakes, will not increase the proportion 
to 15 per cent., so there is a balance of 85 per 
FULL GROWN YOUNG RED-TAIL HAWKS, IN NEST IN COTTONWOOD, MAY 24. 
