Rfalconcam Forum

Things to know before accipiters attack

Folks often ask how I come up with column ideas.

It seems somehow like an arduous process to come up with something unusual or amusing once a week. While I should let them keep believing it is a difficult, almost occult phase of the writing process, in fact, it is easy. All I have to do is glance around. If that does not produce something worthwhile, I just open up any newspaper and make a list of headlines.

This is never disappointing.

Today's exercise provides a good example. Here are the headlines I found:

"Man vandalizes urinal, is arrested;"

"Some unhappy with bikini ad for Perky Cups coffee;"

"Patients try to keep appointments with jailed doc;"

"Tacoma police find naked woman tied to a tree;"

"Kentucky deputy tries to shoot himself out of jail cell;"

"Hamas bans men from women's hair salons;"

"Conn. town terrorized by harmful hawk"

Looking over the list, some sound better than they really are. The first one, for example, is no real surprise.

While I remain at a loss to explain it, many people, particularly young males, attack bathroom furnishings with great ferocity.

On Memorial Day weekend my unit always drew security detail at the campsites, and we could depend upon there always being at least one incident involving the destruction of a toilet. Pencil-neck college seniors about to graduate with a degree in English literature or art history would have a few beers, arm themselves with a club, and begin to savagely attack bathroom fixtures.

I always wanted to do a research paper on this behavior but found, when interviewing the subjects after the alcohol was out of their system, they seemed baffled themselves and could never come up with the basis for their grudge against lavatories. The toilets never did anything to provoke them and only rarely struck back.

There was one dramatic incident wherein, in the midst of using the toilet for its intended purpose, a fellow was overcome with the need to blow it up. The combined effect of alcohol and illegal chemicals rendered him oblivious to cause and effect, so he remained sitting, lit an M-80, slipped it behind him into the toilet tank and turned around giggling. The tank lid hit him in the back of the head with such force that it was broken in two (the lid, not his head which was harder than the porcelain).

He was propelled through the stall door, ripping it from the hinges and landing him unconscious in a face plant on the very nasty floor just moments before the contents of the bowl, which had been blown skyward, landed on his back. No one would render any help because said contents continued to drip from the ceiling for several minutes.

The only tragedy is that this all occurred pre-YouTube.

Regrettably, I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to relate this to nature so we will have to go with the "harmful hawk" business - which is pretty mundane.

The article said wildlife experts were being called in to identify the savage beast, but anyone who spends much time outdoors can tell you there are two strong candidates.

The issue is nest site protection, and the absolute king of this is the peregrine falcon.

During the nesting season, it is sometimes necessary to close off certain popular rock-climbing sites. The reason given publicly is so as not to disturb the nesting peregrine falcons. A bigger concern is that the ultra-high-speed dive-bombing by the falcons has been successful in dislodging climbers and causing nasty falls.

This guarding behavior developed primarily to drive off avian nest-robbers who might like to dine on falcon eggs.

A more likely candidate, given the area where the complaint was generated, is a goshawk.

These are largest of the common accipiters; long-tailed, short-winged, hawks that specialize in preying on other birds. The northern goshawk is large enough to take rabbits and squirrels but it greatly prefers prey like grouse, pigeons and ducks. The preferred attack method is a high-speed pass and a hard strike with both feet balled into fists. The resulting blow stuns the prey and knocks it to the ground where the goshawk can then finish it off.

The goshawk is found throughout North America and Eurasia. The American form tends to be more gray while the Eurasian birds have more dark banding across their breasts.

In the Arctic, many of the birds are nearly pure white. It is noted for being fierce, so much so that Attila the Hun wore the image of the northern goshawk on his war helmet.

This ferocity is never more evident than when something approaches a goshawk nest. In spite of the fact the nests are typically high in the canopy, nothing is safe either in the sky above or on the forest floor below. Younger birds may guard an area as much as 30 yards from the tree although more mature pairs become a little more tolerant.

The first inkling you may have is a high-speed pass within a yard or so when you first cross the imaginary line the goshawk has drawn around its nest tree. If you persist, the next time or two, you get to experience stunning buffet used to incapacitate prey. I know from experience this can raise a nice lump on your noggin. Continue and the attacks will escalate to the point of open claws.

Last year a local bicyclist had an irate goshawk fasten to his helmet, claw and bite viciously while beating him with its wings. The helmet took the brunt but he wasted no time in getting away from the area.

Must be we are more tolerant around here. That attack did not even get an honorable mention, much less a headline.