Story Time

Yesterday the Red Shouldered Hawk baby could be heard from my house, at least 1/4 mile from its nest in Cooper's Grove. It's getting very vigorous! I have in my bookshelf Life Histories of North America Birds of Prey by Arthur Cleveland Bent. The book is based on observations from the late 1800's and early 1900's. It is compiled from the reports of many dedicated observers, and the manuscript was finished in 1936. Thus, it is an interesting historical document that reveals much about past environments and attitudes of humans toward birds.

The section on the Nesting Habits of Red-Shouldered Hawks includes this passage:

The "Chestnut Hill" pair was first located in 1882 in an extensive tract of magnificent chestnut timber, where trees 4 feet in diameter at the base and 60 feet to the first limb were not uncommon. The hawks nested in this section for 8 years until extensive cutting of the woods. Meantime one of the hawks was shot by my companion, but the survivor secured a new mate and occupied the same old nest the following year. After that the hawks were forced to move every few years, until the last of the woods were cut off. The last nest of this pair was found in 1922, a lapse of 41 years, during which we actually found the nest 20 times.(p183)

I would like to see those old groves. I read recently that the precipitous demise of the passenger pigeon from sky-obscuring flocks requiring days to pass to complete extinction was brought about mostly by the destruction of the great Eastern hardwood forests. 

The book from which the passage above is taken has many accounts of people shooting birds of all varieties, including this interesting story about shooting a swallow-tailed kite:

"...we saw seven of these lovely birds sailing about over the prairie, soaring in circles high overhead, or scaling along close to the ground like glorified swallows. ... It was a joy to watch their graceful movements ... We concealed ourselves in the long grass and had not long to wait before we had two of the birds down on the ground [from shooting them] and five others hovering over them... We shot no more; they were too beautiful; and we were in rapt admiration of their graceful lines, the purity of their contrasting colors.... I shall never forget the reverence with which the noted bird artist admired his specimen, as he began at once to sketch its charms." (p. 45)

I think there were many more birds in general back then, so perhaps shooting them in order to admire them more closely did not seem in that context quite as insane as it does today.